Inscription of local surface relief gratings with a Scanning Near-field Optical Microscope on an azo-polymer film

Abstract

A Scanning Near-field Optical Microscope (SNOM) was used to inscribe locally limited Surface Relief Gratings (SRGs) on pDR1M, which is an azo-polymer film. The influence of parameters such as the line scanning time and the line spacing on the amplitude and the period of the gratings is discussed. SRGs have been used to orient Liquid Crystals (LCs), where the LC alignment takes place due to the elastic distortions of the nematic medium close to the surface. In addition, the photoalignment of the azo-chromophores was also used to induce LC alignment. In this work we investigate the use of local SGRs together with the photoalignment to get a local control of the LC alignment properties. The advantage of this method is that it is reversible and the gratings can easily be erased

Surface relief grating formation on nano-objects

“…7 The control of the inscription process of a SRG in the micrometer and submicrometer range has been shown. 8,9 A scanning near field optical microscope was also used as a means of all-optical polarization encoded information storage with subdiffraction resolution. 10 Periodic structures in the submicrometer scale are in high demand for many applications ranging from electronics to photonics.…”