Fabrication of Zinc Oxide Nanopatterns by Quick Gel-Nanoimprint Process toward Optical Switching Devices

We proposed a quick patterning method using a gel-nanoimprint process to fabricate a photonic crystal layer using zinc oxide (ZnO). The X-ray diffraction measurement revealed that the ZnO layer had a wurtzite structure by annealing in air or oxygen ambient. We demonstrated the nanopatterning with a short imprinting time of 5 min by the gel-nanoimprint process. We achieved shrinkage factors of ZnO nanopatterns of as low as 8 and 3% in the width and height directions, respectively. In addition, the uniformity in size of the patterned area was found to be 3% in our process, suggesting that the gel-nanoimprint process allows us to fabricate optical switching devices.