Interference lithography based on a phase mask for the fabrication of diffraction gratings

Abstract

Diffraction gratings have various optical properties such as dispersion, polarization, anti-reflection, and waveguiding, and are widely used in astronomical spectroscopy, holographic display, precision measurement, and other applications. The interference lithography method based on a phase mask uses the interference between diffracted orders of the phase mask to produce periodic patterns. Compared with conventional interference lithography, it has the characteristics of a simple and compact structure of the exposure system. The feature size of the transferable pattern is small, and currently, up to several hundred nanometers can be resolved and prepared; the grating parameters are repeatedly stable and suitable for producing a small number of gratings. First, this method is valuable in replicating diffraction gratings at low cost and high productivity. Moreover, combined with meta-structured phase masks, it can still have academic potential in preparing complex meta-structured patterns.