Chinese Journal of Liquid Crystals and Displays, Volume. 40, Issue 6, 846(2025)
Fabrication of photomask based on patterned guest-host liquid crystal
Micro-nano structures play a crucial role in numerous fields, particularly in optics, sensing, and display technologies. Although various techniques have been developed for micro-nano structure fabrication, achieving these structures through simple and low-cost approaches remains a significant challenge. To address this issue, this paper proposes a design based on patterned oriented guest-host liquid crystals, which successfully realizes the preparation of mask templates constructed on demand. Specifically, the patterned mask is successfully established through the combination of the anisotropic absorption characteristics of guest-host liquid crystals to polarized light and the photo-alignment technology, achieving precise spatial intensity regulation of the incident light field. By introducing it into the laser direct writing system, micro-nano structures with various geometric patterns were successfully formed on the surface of the photoresist. The structure is in close agreement with the predefined mask, demonstrating the capability of structural manufacturing at the micron level (feature size 5 μm). In addition, the self-assembly of liquid crystal on the micro-nano structure enable period grating, thereby achieving stable diffraction under short-wavelength conditions. This result further demonstrates that the designed liquid crystal mask can achieve precise control over the intensity of incident light by accurately modulating the spatial distribution of the optical field. This study provides a novel and cost-effective approach for microstructure fabrication, offering new opportunities for the development of large-area, rapid manufacturing techniques for complex micro-nano structures.
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Junhui WANG, Xuan LIU, Xia DUAN, Boyuan LI, Conglong YUAN, Zhigang ZHENG. Fabrication of photomask based on patterned guest-host liquid crystal[J]. Chinese Journal of Liquid Crystals and Displays, 2025, 40(6): 846
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Received: Mar. 5, 2025
Accepted: --
Published Online: Jul. 14, 2025
The Author Email: Zhigang ZHENG (zgzheng@ecust.edu.cn)