Bilayer metal wire-grid polarizer fabricated by roll-to-roll nanoimprint lithography on flexible plastic substrate

The bilayer metal wire-grid polarizer has several advantages over single-layer wire-grid polarizer and conventional polarizer since it provides higher polarization efficiency and can be easily fabricated. In this work, the authors demonstrate the fabrication of bilayer metal wire-grid polarizer on flexible plastic substrate by a continuous roll-to-roll nanoimprint lithography (R2RNIL) process and evaluate its performance. To fabricate wire-grid polarizer, subwavelength grating structure in epoxysilicone material is first created on a flexible PET substrate by UV R2RNIL followed by aluminum deposition. In initial measurement, extinction ratio exceeding 1000 has been achieved. (c) 2007 American Vacuum Society.