Automated Design, Fabrication, and Characterization of Color Matching Plasmonic Filters

Plasmonic filters, with spectral responses matching the 1931 International Commission on Illumination (CIE) color matching functions, have been fabricated for use in digital imaging. The color matching filters are useful for effectively communicating color between color detection and output devices. A fully automated genetic algorithm that incorporated on-demand 3-D finite-difference time-domain simulations determined the dimensions for the red (600 nm), green (555 nm), and blue (445 nm) filters. The filters demonstrated resonances in the desired spectra with transmission of 25%-35%. These filters were simultaneously fabricated in a single electron beam lithography cycle using materials common to standard complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor production.