Description
Ultraviolet metasurfaces offer powerful opportunities for compact optical systems, including holography, imaging, display, and biosensing. However, their practical implementation remains challenging because UV metasurfaces require deeply subwavelength, high-aspect-ratio nanostructures as well as materials with high refractive indices and low optical loss in the ultraviolet region. Nanoimprint lithography provides a promising route toward scalable and cost-effective metasurface fabrication, but conventional imprint resins typically suffer from low refractive indices, limiting optical efficiency.
Here, we present a high-refractive-index zirconium dioxide nanocomposite platform for manufacturing ultraviolet metaholograms through nanoimprint lithography. We systematically investigate the effects of ZrO₂ nanoparticle concentration and solvent selection on pattern transfer fidelity and optical performance. By varying the nanoparticle loading from 20 to 90 wt%, we identify 80 wt% ZrO₂ as an optimal concentration that provides both a high effective refractive index and reliable nanostructure replication. We further compare several solvent systems and show that solvent–PDMS interactions, including swelling and surface roughness modification, critically influence transfer fidelity. At a wavelength of 325 nm, metaholograms fabricated using 80 wt% ZrO₂ nanocomposites achieve conversion efficiencies of 62.3% with MIBK, 61.5% with acetone, and 51.4% with MEK. These results demonstrate that tailored high-index nanocomposites can enable high-fidelity, high-throughput fabrication of UV metasurfaces, providing a practical pathway toward scalable ultraviolet flat optics.
| I am the presenting author | Yes |
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