Fabrication of dielectric and metallo-dielectric 3D nanostructures by direct laser writing and electroless plating

摘要

Direct laser writing via two-photon absorption allows the fabrication of three-dimensional dielectric structures with sub-micron resolution by tightly focusing ultrashort laser pulses into a photo-sensitive material with a high-resolution microscope objective and scanning the laser focus relative to the material. Woodpile photonic crystals fabricated with this method show a characteristic dip in transmission at near-infrared wavelengths. The spectral position of this transmission dip scales with the grating period of the fabricated crystals. Metallo-dielectric structures can be obtained by first fabricating dielectric templates with direct laser writing and subsequently coating the templates with a thin conformal metal film by electroless plating. Contiguous and conducting silver films can be deposited even on convoluted 3D geometries.