Fully engineered homoepitaxial zinc oxide nanopillar array for near-surface light wave manipulation

We report accurate light wave manipulation by means of an inverse designed homoepitaxial ZnO nanopillar array. Our proof-of-concept structure was optimized for focusing a near-surface light beam which propagates in a free-space parallel to the metal top surface. The on-purpose positioned and perpendicularly aligned vertical ZnO nanopillars were fabricated by homoepitaxial chemical growth technique. The obtained focal distance of 28 mu m as well as the light intensity distribution pattern was verified by three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method. The demonstrated approach can provide inter- and intrachip optical connections in the next generation ZnO nanowire-based integrated photonic devices. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.