Imprint Lithography as a Tool for the Fabrication of Organic-Inorganic Vertical Microcavities

We report on a new method for the fabrication of integrated hybrid organic-inorganic vertical microcavities consisting of two dielectric distributed Bragg reflectors (DBR) embedding an organic active layer. In our approach one of the two DBRs was covered by the active organic material, whereas the second DBR was used as a mold on the soft organic layer and left as a permanent part of the vertical cavity device. As opposed to commonly fabricated organic vertical cavity devices, this method allows one to carefully control the active material waveguide layer (typically one-wavelength) through the control of the DBR/mold patterning depth, and it avoids the high temperature deposition of a DBR onto the organic layer which typically has a negative effects on the optical properties of organic active materials. Furthermore, this procedure helps in smoothing the surface of the organic layer, thus improving the cavity uniformity.