Elevating optical activity: Efficient on-edge lithography of three-dimensional starfish metamaterial

We present an approach for extremely fast, wafer-scale fabrication of chiral starfish metamaterials based on electron beam-and on-edge lithography. A millimeter sized array of both the planar chiral and the true 3D chiral starfish is realized, and their chiroptical performances are compared by circular dichroism measurements. We find optical activity in the visible and near-infrared spectral range, where the 3D starfish clearly outperforms the planar design by almost 2 orders of magnitude, though fabrication efforts are only moderately increased. The presented approach is capable of bridging the gap between high performance optical chiral metamaterials and industrial production by nanoimprint technology. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.