Polymer photonic band-gaps fabricated by nanoimprint lithography

We report on the fabrication and characterization of photonic band-gaps structures by nanoimprint lithography in a dye-doped polymer. Photonic band calculations show that photonic crystal slabs composed of a triangular array of polymer pillars could exhibit photonic band-gaps for the magnetic-like modes. The resulting structures show that the nanoimprint lithography process is well-suited to fabricate in a single-step process, these challenging photonic structures opening perspectives to realize integrated photonic band-gap circuits.

► Use of nanoimprint lithography to directly pattern polymer gain media to realize in a single fabrication step two-dimensional dye-doped photonic crystals.
► Measurement of photonic band-gaps for the magnetic-like modes in undoped photonic crystal slabs.
► We showed that nanoimprint lithography is suitable for the fabrication of cost-efficient, compact, high quality polymer photonic crystals.