Holographic fabrication of 3D photonic crystals through interference of multi-beams with 4 + 1, 5 + 1 and 6 + 1 configurations.

In this paper, we are able to fabricate 3D photonic crystals or quasi-crystals through single beam and single optical element based holographic lithography. The reflective optical elements are used to generate multiple side beams with s-polarization and one central beam with circular polarization which in turn are used for interference based holographic lithography without the need of any other bulk optics. These optical elements have been used to fabricate 3D photonic crystals with 4, 5 or 6-fold symmetry. A good agreement has been observed between fabricated holographic structures and simulated interference patterns.