A research group headed by Chief Engineer
Naoki Ikeda of the Nanotechnology Innovation Center (Director General: Sukekatsu Ushioda) at the National Institute for Materials Science (President: Teruo Kishi), in joint work with the Toyota Central R&D Labs., Inc., (President and Chief Operating Officer: Takashi Saito), succeeded in developing a full color filter using surface plasmons.
In this research, it was possible to form a nanoscale hole array with extremely accurate periodicity using the electron-beam lithography method and reactive ion etching method by adopting aluminum as a metal material with which surface plasmon resonance can be obtained in the entire visible light region, resulting in the successful development of a color filter for the five colors red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. The newly-developed device displays excellent monochromaticity and transmittance.
Because this color filter is not limited to use with glass and semiconductor substrates, but can also be produced on flexible transparent films, application to future ultra-high resolution displays and image sensors is expected. Dramatic improvement in the light extraction efficiency of light emitting diodes is also expected by incorporating the device in LEDs.
