Optical activities of large-area SU8 microspirals fabricated by multibeam holographic lithography

We report on the fabrication of large-area microspirals in SU8 photoresist using a 6 + 1 beam holographic lithography (HL) technique involving the interference of six linearly polarized side beams and one circularly polarized central beam. In contrast to common photoresist-substrate (glass) configuration, the spirals are fabricated on a substrate with a precured thin SU8 photoresist. This SU8-SU8-glass configuration strengthens the attachment of the spirals to the substrate, and hence enhances the quality of the fabricated spirals. The fabricated SU8 microspirals exhibit large optical activities with a polarization rotation close to 10 deg and a circular dichroism of about 0.5 in the visible range. Our precured substrate method could lift the limitations of the HL method in fabricating large and uniform microstructures or nanostructures.