Vejledere:
Radu Malureanu: rmal@fotonik.dtu.dk
Andrei Lavrinenko: alav@fotonik.dtu.dk
This project aims at optimising an etching technique for patterning metal/dielectric multilayer structures.
Metamaterials are artificial media manufactured using nano-/micro-fabrication techniques. They are useful for controlling the propagation of light in unprecedented ways since they exhibit properties that are rarely, or even never, observed in nature. A special type of metamaterial is the hyperbolic metamaterial. They have properties extremely different in one direction of the material compared with another thus making them very interesting to study. Such properties are obtained by, for example, having multiple layers of metals and dielectrics.
While we developed a reliable fabrication procedure for fabricating such multilayers with periods down to 15-20nm, the main challenge is to pattern these structures into devices that can, afterwards, be used. Initial studies show the possibility of patterning our structures using ion-beam etching techniques (IBE). However, these initial studies also show challenges in obtaining the desired quality of the structure.
In this project, the student will use pre-fabricated structures that will have to be patterned and then etched, the etching step being the one in need for optimisation (at DTU Nanolab). Afterwards, the layers will be morphologically characterised both in terms of sidewall angle and smoothness, and etch depth. The inspection of the layer’s quality will be done using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) techniques.
