Silicon nanowire grid polarizer for very deep ultraviolet fabricated from a shear-aligned diblock copolymer template

A silicon (Si) nanowire grid ultraviolet (UV) transmission polarizer has been fabricated, and its performance was measured over the visible to deep UV range. A cylinder-forming polystyrene-b-poly(hexylmethacrylate) diblock copolymer was coated onto an amorphous Si layer supported on a fused silica substrate, then shear aligned and employed as a mask for reactive-ion etching, resulting in a Si grid of 33 nm period and multi-centimeter-squared area. Due to the high plasma frequency and UV reflectance of the deposited Si, this nanowire grid was able to polarize light down into the deep UV, including 193 nm.