Design and holographic fabrication of tetragonal and cubic photonic crystals with phase mask: toward the mass-production of three-dimensional photonic crystals

We present design and holographic fabrication of the woodpile-type photonic crystals through phase mask techniques. Three-dimensional photonic crystal structures with tetragonal or cubic symmetries are fabricable by exposing the photoresist to the interference patterns generated by the phase masks. These photonic crystals have full photonic band gaps as large as 27% of the gap center frequency if made from silicon. The realized photonic crystal in SU-8 photoresist shows overlapped thus more stable woodpile-type structures. The phase-mask based lithography for the fabrication of the photonic crystals, together with the computer-controlled fabrication process, could take advantage of the standard tools of the electronics industry, leading toward the mass-production of the three-dimensional photonic crystals. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.