Real-Time Imaging of Plasmonic Concentric Circular Gratings Fabricated by Lens-Axicon Laser Interference Lithography

Concentric circular gratings are diffractive optical elements useful for polarization-independent applications in photonics and plasmonics. They are usually fabricated using a low-throughput and expensive electron beam lithography technique. In this paper, concentric circular gratings with selectable pitch values were successfully manufactured on thin films of azobenzene molecular glass using a novel laser interference lithography technique utilizing Bessel beams generated by a combined lens-axicon configuration. This innovative approach offers enhanced scalability and a simplified manufacturing process on larger surface areas compared to the previously reported techniques. Furthermore, the plasmonic characteristics of these concentric circular gratings were investigated using conventional spectrometric techniques after transferring the nanostructured patterns from azobenzene to transparent gold/epoxy thin films. In addition, the real-time imaging of surface plasmon resonance colors transmitted from the concentric circular gratings was obtained using a 45-megapixel digital camera. The results demonstrated a strong correlation between the real-time photographic technique and the spectroscopy measurements, validating the efficacy and accuracy of this approach for the colorimetric studying of surface plasmon resonance responses in thin film photonics.