Rewritable ITO Patterning for Nanophotonics

Abstract

Nanophotonic devices leverage unique interactions between photons and materials at the nanoscale, enabling applications in optical communication, biosensing, and quantum computing. These devices' properties are susceptible to material composition and structural design. Nanofabrication techniques, such as optical lithography, e-beam lithography, two-photon polymerization, and direct laser writing, have been widely applied to fabricate nanophotonic devices. Notably, rewritable fabrication stands out due to its low cost, flexibility, efficiency, and multi-functionality. In this paper, a novel rewritable nanofabrication technique is proposed, which combines electrochemical reactions with direct laser writing, to fabricate nanophotonic devices on low-cost indium tin oxide (ITO) films. The experimental results have demonstrated that high-quality and erasable photonic structures such as diffraction gratings and holography masks can be directly fabricated using our technique. Hence, it is believed that this method can be applied in diverse fields such as nanophotonics, optoelectronic devices, biosensors, micro-electromechanical systems, and nonlinear optics.