Laser nano-fabrication inside silicon with spatial beam modulation and non-local seeding

Abstract: Nano-fabrication in silicon, arguably the most important material for modern technology, has been limited exclusively to its surface. Existing lithographic methods cannot penetrate the wafer surface without altering it, whereas emerging laser-based subsurface or in-chip fabrication remains at > 1 micrometer resolution. In addition, available methods do not allow positioning or modulation with sub-micron precision deep inside the wafer. The fundamental difficulty of breaking these dimensional barriers are two-fold, i.e., complex nonlinear effects inside the wafer and the inherent diffraction limit for laser light. Here, we overcome these challenges by using structured-laser-beams and exploiting preformed subsurface structures as seed, in order to establish the first controlled nano-fabrication capability inside silicon. We demonstrate buried nano-structures of feature sizes down to 100 nm +- 25 nm, with sub-wavelength and multi-dimensional control; thereby improving the state-of-the-art by an order-of-magnitude. In order to showcase the photonic capabilities, we fabricated the first in-chip nano-photonic elements, i.e., nano-gratings with record diffraction efficiency and spectral control. The reported advance is an important step towards in-chip nano-photonic systems, micro-/nano-fluidics & NEMS/MEMS, and 3D electronic-photonic integration.