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Electromagnetic Metamaterials — Availability and Spectral Coverage of a

New Class of Micro/Nanofabricated Composite Materials
H. O. Moser*, B. D. F. Casse , M. Bahou, J. W. Lee , P. D. Gu and L. K. Jian Characterization of the EM3 Structures

Singapore Synchrotron Light Source (SSLS), National University of Singapore, Microfabrication of Electromagnetic Metamaterials
5 Research Link, Singapore 117603. 1 3
*moser@nus.edu.sg

AZ P4620 Electroplati
ng
Au
Project Outline Cr
Si
Development of a new kind of artificial materials, referred to as 4
electromagnetic metamaterials (EM3), which possess superior electromagnetic Cr etch
properties that cannot be found in naturally occurring materials. EM3 refers to 2
materials having simul-taneously negative permittivity ε and permeability μ.
Laser 5
Veselago, in his pioneering paper in 1967 [1], predicted that such materials
writing Au etch
would exhibit a plethora of unusual effects such as a negative index of
Figure 3: The resonance frequencies at which the composite materials (rod-split-rings
refraction, a reverse Doppler, Čerenkov and Goos-Hänchen effects. EM3 are structures) show EM3 behavior.
expected to provide new functionalities and enhancements to future optical
and optoelectronics devices such as high-speed circuits, high-resolution
imaging systems and higher capacity optical data storage systems. The next- LIGA and Assembled THz Multilayer Structures
(Scale bar 20 μm)
generation EM3, based on miniaturization technologies, will also impact areas
1 5
such as telecommunications, information technology, life sciences and military X-ray exposure Hot embossing
applications.
X-rays
Gold absorber
Background 2.1 mm x 2.1 mm microchip Graphite membrane
In the 1990’s Sir John Pendry and co-workers devised recipes for obtaining a (Scale bar 100 μm) Resist
negative permittivity [2] and permeability [3] by a combination of metallic rods Figure 1: 2.1 x 2.1 mm2 microchip containing about 400 rod-split-rings Substrate
and split ring resonators. Pendry’s inspiring work led to a resurgence of effort in structures embedded in a plastic matrix (AZ P4620). 4
Resist stripping
fabricating electromagnetic metamaterials with first demonstrations in the GHz 2 3
range [4]. More recently, micro-/nanofabrication has been exploited to push the Development Electrodeposition
useful resonance frequency by more than 4 orders of magnitude into the THz Nanofabrication of Electromagnetic Metamaterials
range, thus reaching already near infrared telecommunications frequencies
around 194 THz (~1.55 μm) [5–8]. SSLS has been using its LiMiNT facility 1 3 Metal deposition
via sputtering
(Lithography for Micro-/Nanotechnology) since 2003 to manufacture the next-
generation EM3, thus producing the first microelectromagnetic metamaterials in Au
the THz range (2.28–2.7 THz) and nanoelectro-magnetic metamaterials at Figure 4: Illustration of the LIGA
PMMA Process
frequencies up to 187.5 THz [6]. LiMiNT is a one-stop shop comprising the full
LIGA† process cycle for micro-/nanomanufacturing in a class 1000 cleanroom. Glass
Present developments at SSLS aims to reach even higher resonance frequencies
by reducing the geometric dimensions of the structures further, to improve 2 4
E-beam Lift-off
isotropy of the materials by means of tilted X-ray exposure, and to produce (Scale bar 200
μm)
copious amounts of high-quality samples by X-ray lithography and, later on, hot
embossing.

SU8 Chip produced by LIGA

Methods and Materials
Figure 5: Metal structures embedded in SU8 chip, produced by the LIGA process
The microstructures were patterned by means of a Heidelberg DWL 66 laser (left). Several chips stacked together to form EM3 slab (right). [Note that the
spacing of the layers has been exaggerated for illustration purposes]
writer, and the nanostructures by means of an FEI Sirion SEM equipped with
the Nabity Nanometer pattern Generator System (NPGS). X-ray lithography
was employed for batch processing of larger quantities of EM3 on 4˝ wafer References
format. The resonance fre-quency at which the composite materials (rod-split- [1] V. G. Veselago, Sov. Phys. Usp.,10:509, 1968.

rings structures) show EM3 behavior is determined by means of IR Fourier [2] J. B. Pendry, A. J. Holden , W. J. Stewart , and I. Youngs, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 4773 (19 96); J. Phys. Condens.
Matter 10, 4785 (1998).
transform spectroscopy at the Bruker IFS 66 v/S of SSLS’ ISMI beamline.
[3] J. B. Pendry, A. J. Holden , D. J. Robbins, W. J. Stewart, IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory and Tech. 47, 2075(1999).
Nanostructures on glass [4] D. R. Smith, W. J. Padilla, D. C. Vier, S. C. Nemat-Nasser, and S. Schultz, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 4184(2000).
[5] H. O. Moser, B. D. F. Casse, O. Wilhelmi, and B. T. Saw, Phys. Rev. Lett., 94(6):063901, (2005).
(Scale bar 1 μm)
[6] B. D. F. Casse, H. O. Moser, M. Bahou, L. K. Jian, and P. D. Gu, Nanoelectronics, 2006 IEEE Conference on Emerging
Technologies, 10–13 Jan 2006, pages: 328–331.
Figure 2: 500 × 500 μm2 array containing 250,000 rod-split-ring structures. [7] Stefan Linden, Christian Enkrich, Martin Wegener, Jianfeng Zhou, Thomas Koschny, and Costas M. Soukoulis
Science 306, 1351 (2004).
† LIGA is the German acronym for X-ray Lithography (Lithographie), [8] S. Zhang, W. Fan, N. C. Panoiu, K. J. Malloy, R. M. Osgood, and S. R. J. Brueck, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 137404 (2005).
Electrodeposition (Galvanoformung) and Molding (Abformung).
Acknowledgments
Work performed at SSLS under A*STAR/MOE RP3979908M, A*STAR 0121050038, NUS Core C-380-003-003-
001 grants. The authors would like to thank Stephen Inglis for his contributions to the microtechnology
processes.

SSLS MAKES LIGHT WORK FOR YOU SINGAPORE SYNCHROTRON LIGHT SOURCE SSLS MAKES LIGHT WORK FOR YOU SINGAPORE SYNCHROTRON LIGHT SOURCE