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Breaking the Mold to Produce Submicron Polymeric Gratings with Large AreasIRG 2: L. F. Pease III, P. Deshpande, S. Y. Chou, and W. B. Russel Patterns formed from 50 nm and 100 nm polystyrene films and 6.5 µm and 45 µm poly(methyl methacrylate) films. The solid line represents the best fit of four times the film thickness.  Grating formed from a 210 nm film. The period is approximately 850 nm, just at the resolution limit of optical microscopy. Princeton scientists have developed a new method for making gratings by prying apart two rigid plates that sandwich a thin, glassy polymeric film. The process fractures the film into complementary sets of ridges on each plate, with the ridges on one corresponding to the valleys on the other. The technique produces periodic patterns with spacing from 200 nm to 200 µm that scale as four times the film thickness, regardless of the molecular weight and chemical composition of the glassy polymer. Gratings with areas as large as two square centimeters have been obtained, suggesting the possibility of an easy and inexpensive means to manufacture precision optical gratings.
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