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Optical Microtechnology
Dr. Tim Davis
CSIRO MIT
3.30pm, Friday 1 October 2004, AR103 Seminar Room, Graduate Research Centre
Microtechnology plays an important role in modern optical systems. Apart from obvious applications in
fabricating semiconductor-based optical devices, such as laser diodes and detectors, microtechnology is used extensively to create
diffractive structures, micro-mirror arrays, micro-lens arrays, photonic crystals and many more components. At CSIRO we have
developed a range of diffractive and reflective optical structures with applications in security print, such as anti-counterfeiting
measures for bank notes. The heart of our capability is an electron beam lithography system which uses a finely focussed beam of
electrons to expose electron sensitive resins to create patterns. This is the only commercial grade system operating in Australia
and is capable of writing patterns with a resolution of about 100 nm over areas as large as 100 mm square. Importantly, the system
allows us to create structures smaller than the wavelength of light so that we can explore near-field optical effects, such as the
generation of surface plasmons by light incident on metals. The use and control of these interactions is known as plasmonics.
In this talk I will describe the electron beam lithography and ultra-violet photolithography technology
that we use for creating microstructures and I will talk about the optical applications. Some preliminary results on our recent work
on the generation of surface plasmons in subwavelength structures will be presented.
Back to 2004 programme
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