SOE and Nanoimprinting: Interview with Stephen Chou

In order to shrink bulk optical systems, integrate them on a chip, and fabricate them monolithically, two new platform technologies are crucial: subwavelength optical elements (SOE) and nanoimprint.

SOE's are optical devices with the feature size lessthan the wavelength of light, therefore having no non-zero order diffraction. SOEs behave fundamentally different from bulk optics or diffaction optics.

In order to fabricate SOEs and harvest their potentials, an ultra-high-resolution large-area nanopatterning with high-throughput and low-cost is essential. Among all available nanopatterning methods, nanoimprint lithography (NIL) demonstrated the most promising technology for SOE fabrication, and many other disciplines.

Stephen Chou discusses the principles, applications, and commercialization in SOEs and NIL. Using SOE as optical elements and NIL as the manufacturing technology, Chou's team at Princeton's dream of optical systems on a chip will be greatly accelerated.

Stephn Y. Chou is the Joseph C. Elgin Professor of Engineering, and the head of the NanoStructure Laboratory at Princeton University. Dr. Chou's pioneering research and inventions have helped in shaping new paths in the fields of nanofabrication, nanoscale electronics, optoelectronics, magnetics, biotechnology and materials, and have brought signifcant impacts ot industry. He founded Nanonex and NanoOpto, and is a co-founder of BioNanoMatrix.