Large area parallel surface nanostructuring with laser irradiation through microlens arrays

Abstract

In the past decade, the development of nanoelectronics and nano-optics has attracted much interest in surface nanostructuring of semiconductor materials. The irradiation of a microlens array by a laser beam generates many focused light spots, which can act as a direct writing tool on photo-polymer materials. This maskless surface nanostructuring technique enables thousands to millions of identical nano-features to be patterned in a couple of laser pulses. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) images show that nano-features were patterned uniformly on the substrate surface, which suggests a versatile way of parallel surface nanostructuring over a large area. The simulation results of the energy flux distribution at the focal plane of the microlens arrays will also be discussed. © 2010 World Scientific Publishing Company.