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Updated: Aug 14, 2025
Fabrication of Refractive-index-matched Devices for Biomedical Microfluidics
Published on: September 10, 2018
A fluid-guided printing strategy for patterning high refractive index photonic microarrays
Meng Su1, Yali Sun2, Bingda Chen1
1Key Laboratory of Green Printing, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS), Beijing Engineering Research Center of Nanomaterials for Green Printing Technology, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (BNLMS), Beijing 100190, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
A novel fluid-guided printing process creates high refractive index (HRI) selenium microarrays without lithography. This method enables efficient light confinement and tunable structural coloration for advanced photonic devices.
Area of Science:
- Photonics and Materials Science
- Micro/Nano Fabrication
Background:
- High refractive index (HRI) photonic structures provide strong light confinement and tunable optical properties.
- Current fabrication methods, often lithography-based, face limitations in applicability and material choice.
- There is a need for scalable, versatile fabrication techniques for HRI microstructures.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a non-lithography-based method for fabricating HRI selenium microarrays.
- To demonstrate the effectiveness of a fluid-guided printing process for precise microstructure patterning.
- To explore the optical properties and potential applications of the fabricated HRI selenium microarrays.
Main Methods:
- Replication of microstructured templates from silicon wafers without lithography.
- Utilizing a fluid-guided printing process with selenium above its glass transition temperature.
- Employing controlled heating to induce structure downsizing and orientation patterning.
Main Results:
- Successfully fabricated HRI selenium microarrays with significant structure narrowing (1.9 μm from 18 μm template).
- Demonstrated angle-dependent structural coloration and polarization effects due to high refractive index and optical confinement.
- Achieved high refractive efficiencies and strong light confinement capabilities in the selenium microarrays.
Conclusions:
- The fluid-guided printing platform offers a scalable, lithography-free approach for HRI photonic structures.
- The fabricated HRI selenium microarrays exhibit promising optical properties for various applications.
- This technique facilitates the development of advanced optical metasurfaces for sensing, polarization modulation, and light manipulation.
