Photopolymerization and Metalization for Fabricating Functional Devices and Metamaterials

We present three-dimensional micro/nano-fabrication techniques to create new photonic and functional devices. We have demonstrated two-photon-induced photopolymerization for fabricating 3D micro/nano-structures [1, 2]. In this method, arbitrary three-dimensional polymer structures are fabricated by scanning tightly focused infrared femto-second laser in three dimensions. Recently, we extended this technique to fabricate functional micro devices including photonic band-gap crystals [3] and movable micro-springs. The shrinkage of polymer during polymerization is utilized to reduce the structure size beyond the diffraction limit of light [4]. A micro-lens array with 2500 lenses is used to produce a mass of structures in parallel. By using this micro-lens array system, we fabricated 800 micro-springs and micro-cubic structures by single laser scanning [5]. In this presentation, metalization of fabricated polymer structures will also be described. We coat metal on the surface of polymer by electroless metal plating, but not on the glass substrate [6]. Hydrophobic coating was pre-made on the glass substrates and polymer surface is modified with Sn2+-ions. With this method micro-coil array is metalized [7]. Micro-coil array exhibits negative refraction due to the excitation of magnetic field through coils. We would like to show our design of the structure [8]. In the end, we talk about our newly invented diffraction-free imaging with nano metal rod array [9].