Scalable direct printing of visible-light metasurfaces composed of an industrial ZrO₂-composite imprint material

Abstract

Optical metasurfaces offer a promising route to the replacement of traditional bulky optics with thinner and more functional ones, but their practical application has been challenging due to the lack of scalable and cost-effective manufacturing methods. One promising path to meeting this challenge could be single-step, direct printing of resin-based metasurfaces using well-established nanoimprint lithography (NIL). However, for its full-scale use, there are still practical issues such as fabrication accuracy as well as resin stability and mass-productivity. In this study, we address these issues by highly leveraging the recent advances in industrial nanoimprint resins. Here, a zirconium dioxide (ZrO 2 )-composite resin for industrial NIL is used for the direct printing of metasurfaces. We show that such a resin well meets the fundamental requirements for constructing dielectric metasurfaces, while affording practical advantages such as high formability, high resistance to long-term light exposure, and the feasibility of mass production. Our experimental demonstration validates that industrial resin is fully applicable for scalable metasurface manufacturing, which could be an important milestone toward the commercialization of metasurface optics.