Generating small-scale structures from large-scale ones via optical near-field interactions

Optical near-fields, which appear in the vicinity of structures when irradiated with light, exhibit a hierarchical nature, meaning that the degree of localization of optical near-fields at a given point is related to the scale of the structure involved in this process. Therefore, if we could make optically induced fabrication processes selectively localized in the near-field region, we could generate a smaller-scale structure even from a larger-scale one via optical near-field interactions. We demonstrate the theoretical basis of this with an angular spectrum analysis of optical near-fields. We also experimentally demonstrate such principles by using ZnO nanoneedles fabricated through metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) followed by a photo-induced MOVPE procedure where smaller-scale generated structures were clearly observed with the help of light irradiation. We also observed that the generated fine structures followed a power-law distribution, indicating that fractal structures emerged via optical near-field interactions.