High-performance, large area, deep ultraviolet to infrared polarizers based on 40 nm line/78 nm space nanowire grids

Large-area, 100 mm in diameter, aluminum nanowire grids with 40 nm line/78 nm space were fabricated with full-wafer immersion interference lithography. The aluminum nanowire grids with a 59 nm half-pitch work as a highly efficient optical polarizer for deep ultraviolet wavelength down to similar to 250 nm. In addition, an extremely high contrast from 10 000:1 to 50 000:1 was achieved across the whole visible and near-infrared wavelength range, along with good transmittance (85%-90%). The broadband large-area high-performance polarizer operating down to deep ultraviolet wavelength opens up applications including semiconductor lithography and metrology applications.