Fabrication of Complex Diffractive Structures in an Organic-Inorganic Hybrid and Incorporation of Silver Nanoparticles

We report on the fabrication of photo-patterned structures with sub-micron feature sizes in a sol-gel derived organic-inorganic hybrid material. Patterns with a high level of design complexity are presented, in the form of a diffractive optically variable device. We also demonstrate how the material can serve as a matrix for nano-scale components, via the incorporation of Ag nanoparticles. It is shown that Ag nanoparticles can be used to modify the optical properties of this photo-patternable material.