Mie-lithography: self-guiding nonlinear laser printing for deep ultraviolet to near-infrared nano dispersion devices

TL;DR

This paper introduces Mie-lithography, a novel laser printing technique that creates air-filled void resonators to overcome material dispersion-loss limits, enabling broadband optical devices from DUV to NIR with high resolution and throughput.

Contribution

It presents a new fabrication method that shifts light-matter interaction into air voids, allowing broadband dispersion control without complex nanofabrication or heterogenous integration.

Findings

Achieved high-resolution, high-throughput printing of dispersion units.

Demonstrated a nano spectrometer covering 200-800 nm range.

Enabled broadband optical device fabrication within a single material.

Abstract

Nanoscale control of optical dispersion is essential for applications ranging from miniaturized spectrometers to color printing, all of which demand broadband spectral tunability. However, the Kramers-Kronig relations impose a fundamental trade-off between dispersion and loss, strictly limiting the design ability of single-material devices across the deep ultraviolet (DUV) to near-infrared (NIR) regimes. Consequently, the fabrication of miniaturized dispersion devices heavily relies on costly nanofabrication or heterogeneous integration. Here we overcome these limitations by shifting the light-matter interaction from solid structure into air-filled voids. We introduce a fabrication strategy termed "Mie-lithography", in which laser printed seed nanocavities excite Mie resonances in air and the resulting localized field enhancement drives the self-assembly of three-dimensionally tunable void-type optical resonators. Because the resonant modes are primarily confined within air voids, this architecture effectively circumvents material-imposed dispersion-loss constraints, allowing on-demand customization of the broadband spectral response. This approach enables single-step, high-throughput (>= 10^6 pixels/s) printing of dispersion units with a resolution of 63,500 DPI. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate a DUV-NIR nano spectrometer integrated in a single material covering an unprecedented range from 200 nm to 800 nm. Our approach can be extended into a platform for ultra-broadband nano devices fabrication and design, opening avenues for high-pixel-density displays and miniaturized spectrometers.