Fabrication and characterization of face-centered-cubic void dots photonic crystals in a solid polymer material

Spherical void dots with a diameter of 1.2–1.8 µm have been generated in a solid polymer material by use of the ultrafast laser driven micro-explosion method. Micron-sized structures with a face-centered cubic lattice stacked in the [100] and [111] directions have been fabricated. Confocal microscopic images show the high uniformity of the fabricated structures. Photonic stopgaps with a suppression rate of approximately 70% as well as the second-order stopgaps have been observed in both directions. It is shown that the dependence of the stopgaps on the illumination angle in the [100] direction is significantly different from that in the [111] direction.