Nano-imprint and nano-moulding with polymers have quite some history already, but usually, those polymers are not specifically selected to allow for optical applications, where absorption and damping due to volume scattering have to be as small as possible. Defined optical (surface) scattering plates represent one such application, i.e., transparent plates with specific surface roughness morphologies. Typically optical scattering plates are made of glass, and the roughness is produced with a mask-less, self-organizational reactive ion etching (RIE) process. As this technology is relatively expensive, it would be beneficial to replicate such surfaces by imprint or moulding into a polymer. Since the scattering characteristics are not only related to micron-sized but also to nm-sized features on the surface, the right choice of the monomer solution is crucial. Here we use the PDMS-based transparent elastomer Elastosil® RT 601 A/B by Wacker Chemie, Munich, Germany, with very good results. We conduct two nano-moulding steps, the first one making the transition from the master to the negative form, the second one from the negative to the positive form. In the case of such scattering plates, the shape-accuracy can be characterized by the very application for which the plates are intended, i.e., by optical scattering. For other applications, scattering might still be an option for characterization. In our case, the transmissive scattering characteristics of the master, the negative form, and the positive form are nearly identical, which reveals the high accuracy of the nano-moulding process. Moreover, the fact that there are nearly no differences between the scattering characteristics of the negative form on one side and the master or the positive form on the other side is a manifestation of ‘Babinet's principle’. Together with the very good achieved accuracy, this finding allows to confine the process to only one moulding step further on and, thus, to the inverse morphology in the polymer for scattering applications.

使用聚合物进行纳米压印和纳米成型已经有相当长的历史，但通常，这些聚合物并未专门用于光学应用，因为体积散射引起的吸收和阻尼必须尽可能小。定义的光学（表面）散射板代表一种这样的应用，即具有特定表面粗糙度形态的透明板。通常，光学散射板由玻璃制成，粗糙度是通过无掩模、自组织反应离子蚀刻 (RIE) 工艺产生的。由于该技术相对昂贵，因此通过压印或模塑成聚合物来复制此类表面将是有益的。由于散射特性不仅与微米级有关，而且与表面上的纳米级特征有关，正确选择单体溶液至关重要。在这里，我们使用德国慕尼黑瓦克化学公司生产的基于 PDMS 的透明弹性体 Elastosil® RT 601 A/B，效果非常好。我们进行了两个纳米成型步骤，第一个是从母版过渡到负片，第二个是从负片到正片。在这种散射板的情况下，形状精度的特征在于板的预期应用，即光学散射。对于其他应用，散射可能仍然是表征的一种选择。在我们的案例中，母版、负片和正片的透射散射特性几乎相同，这揭示了纳米成型工艺的高精度。而且，一侧的负型与另一侧的母型或正型的散射特性几乎没有差异这一事实是“巴比涅原理”的体现。连同达到的非常好的精度，这一发现允许将过程限制在仅进一步的一个成型步骤中，因此，限制在聚合物中用于散射应用的相反形态。