Creating Photonic Metamaterials in CMOS Foundry Processes

This invention focuses on creating photonic metamaterials by repurposing CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) foundry processes. Metamaterials are engineered structures designed to achieve specific electromagnetic properties, enabling unique effects such as negative refraction, superlensing, and enhanced light-matter interaction. This development uses advanced 3D nanofabrication in semiconductor foundries to produce metamaterials with exotic properties, like zero and negative refractive indices and hyperbolic characteristics.

Background: 
Metamaterials are specialized artificial materials designed to control electromagnetic responses in ways not found in natural materials. Current metamaterial fabrication approaches have limitations related to scalability, integration into existing semiconductor platforms, and the
challenges of achieving 3D configurations. Traditional semiconductor fabrication processes, such as those used in CMOS foundries, are now being repurposed to produce these nanostructures at high precision and scalability. This approach leverages mature semiconductor technology to enable applications that require subwavelength control of light, previously challenging with conventional materials.

Applications: 

• 3D metamaterials
• Superlenses for sub-diffraction-limit imaging
• On-chip optical isolators using negative index materials
• High-sensitivity sensors based on the enhanced local density of states
• Hyperbolic waveguides that enable broadband light confinement and guidance

Advantages: 

• Utilizes existing CMOS and semiconductor foundry capabilities, allowing for scalable and precise 3D nanofabrication
• Produces metamaterials with unique electromagnetic properties (e.g., zero and negative index, hyperbolic characteristics) 
• Enables novel applications in optical science
• Compatible with existing CMOS manufacturing and integration into photonic integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices