Hot Embossing Method Improves Polymer's Light Emission

Incorporating wavelength-scale microstructures such as gratings can improve the properties of lasers and displays made from organic semiconductors. This typically is accomplished by using complex methods such as photolithography or chemical etching. Now, researchers from St. Andrews and Exeter universities, both in the UK, have developed a process in which a master pattern is pressed into a heated mass of the polymer, which is then allowed to cool.

As reported in the Sept. 9 issue of Applied Physics Letters, the soft-lithography method -- called hot embossing lithography -- faithfully produced a 400-nm-period, 20-nm-deep grating pattern that Bragg-scattered emitted light that otherwise would have been trapped in waveguide modes.