title: Photon nanojet lens: design, fabrication and characterization.
abstract: In this paper, a novel nanolens with super resolution, based on the photon nanojet effect through dielectric nanostructures in visible wavelengths, is proposed. The nanolens is made from plastic SU-8, consisting of parallel semi-cylinders in an array. This paper focuses on the lens designed by numerical simulation with the finite-difference time domain method and nanofabrication of the lens by grayscale electron beam lithography combined with a casting/bonding/lift-off transfer process. Monte Carlo simulation for injected charge distribution and development modeling was applied to define the resultant 3D profile in PMMA as the template for the lens shape. After the casting/bonding/lift-off process, the fabricated nanolens in SU-8 has the desired lens shape, very close to that of PMMA, indicating that the pattern transfer process developed in this work can be reliably applied not only for the fabrication of the lens but also for other 3D nanopatterns in general. The light distribution through the lens near its surface was initially characterized by a scanning near-field optical microscope, showing a well defined focusing image of designed grating lines. Such focusing function supports the great prospects of developing a novel nanolithography based on the photon nanojet effect.
authors.affiliation: Nanolithography and Application Research Group, State key lab of Asic and System, School of Information Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Chen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Sichao
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jinhai
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.forename: Bing-Rui
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Reyad
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mehfuz
authors.forename: Stacey
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Drakeley
authors.forename: Fumin
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Yifang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen