Versatile Sleeve-and-Bulk Fabrication of Inversely Designed Nanophotonic Structures with High Pattern Transfer Fidelity

Abstract

Inverse design is a powerful computational tool for generating nanophotonic devices that should outperform their traditionally designed counterparts. However, translating these theoretical gains into physical devices is challenging because the irregular and non-intuitive features that make inversely designed structures so effective also make them exceptionally difficult to fabricate, typically necessitating substantial process optimization unique to each device design. We describe a versatile two-step nanofabrication process that achieves pattern transfer fidelity in excess of 90% for each of three distinct inverse device designs with no device-specific process optimization.