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Miniature planar solid immersion mirror with focused spot less than a quarter wavelength

William A. Challener, Christophe Mihalcea, Chubing Peng, and Kalman Pelhos

Open Access Open Access

Abstract

We describe a microoptical planar waveguide solid immersion mirror with high optical throughput, and show that it can focus light to spot sizes of ~90 nm at a wavelength of 413 nm. Scanning near field optical microscope images of the light within the device are in good agreement with a simple theoretical model. This device is accurately mass-produced with lithographic and thin film deposition techniques known from modern integrated circuit processing.

©2005 Optical Society of America

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Figures (8)
Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. Some techniques for achieving high optical resolution: (a) an aperture of opaque metal at the tip of a Si cantilever or a tapered optical fiber, (b) a solid immersion mirror, (c) a solid immersion lens, and (d) a superSIL.

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Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. (a) FWHM of field intensity for the TE0 mode vs. core thickness for the waveguide described in the text. The best light confinement occurs at the minimum. (b) Normalized field intensity perpendicular to plane of waveguide for a core thickness of 70 nm. The light intensity decays quickly in the outer cladding layers.

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Fig. 3.
Fig. 3. Diagram of the light rays within the PSIM. The dimensions shown correspond to the fabricated devices.

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Fig. 4.
Fig. 4. Calculation of light intensity within the plane of a PSIM by superposition of TE0 waveguide modes. White dashed lines indicate the geometry of the experimental dual-PSIM. An interference pattern is visible with a focal spot size of about a quarter wavelength.

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Fig. 5.
Fig. 5. (a) Dual PSIM’s etched into a Ta2O5 / thermal SiO2 stack on a Si wafer. Red light was launched into the PSIM’s as shown by the arrows. The surface of the PSIM’s was scanned by the SNOM near their intersection to obtain the interference pattern and the focal spot size. The scale bar is 50 μm. (b) PSIM etched into an Al2O3 / Ta2O5 / Al2O3 stack on a ceramic substrate. This device was further processed to make the truncated part of the PSIM accessible for SNOM measurements.

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Fig. 6.
Fig. 6. SNOM image of light focused by a PSIM with an asymmetric waveguide. The interference pattern resembles the calculated one shown in Fig. 4. The scale bar is 3 μm.

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Fig. 7.
Fig. 7. (a) SNOM image of spot at bottom surface of a PSIM with a symmetric waveguide slightly out of focus to exhibit side lobes. The scale bar is 0.5 μm. Scan of light intensity across the focused spot in vertical (b), and horizontal (c) directions showing width of central peak and side lobes. The wavelength is 413 nm.

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Fig. 8.
Fig. 8. Theoretical field intensities in the focal plane of the PSIM for (a) light polarized parallel to the bottom surface of the PSIM and (b) light polarized normal to this surface. Dashed lines indicate position of waveguide core. The FWHM contour is also shown for |Ex|2.

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Equations (2)

Equations on this page are rendered with MathJax. Learn more.

d ≅ 0.51 · λ NA
f ( θ ) = 1 1 − cos θ .
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