Photonic crystal fabrication in lithium niobate via pattern transfer through wet and dry etched chromium mask

The need to fabricate photonic crystals from lithium niobate (LN) with accurate feature sizes is important to the development of optoelectronic devices. This paper reports a fabrication process to dry etch X-cut LN at a submicron scale using electron beam lithography and chromium as a hard mask. The chromium mask was used for both dry-etching and wet-etching in a unique method. Problems and solutions found during fabrication are presented. Arrays consisting of 400 nm diameter holes with a high aspect ratio were etched in LN, creating photonic crystals modeled to transmit light in the infrared spectrum.