MRI: Acquisition of True 3D Laser Lithography System with Sub-Micrometer Resolution

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Non-technical: The purpose of this activity is the acquisition of a Nanoscribe 3D laser lithography system (Photonic Professional GT) and its installation in the Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS) at Harvard University. As the biggest shared facility center of nanotechnology in New England area, CNS is currently supporting more than 1,400 users (both academic and industrial) with research interests ranging from bio-engineering and micro-fluidics to quantum optics and fuel cells. Our diverse research population, working with wide range of materials and structures, has a need for fabrication of three-dimensional structures. Conventional nanofabrication techniques currently available in CNS, however, are planar in nature and are limited to realization of two-dimensional structures only. Nanoscribe 3D overcomes this limitation, and allows for fabrication of complex, hierarchical, structures spanning wide range of length scales, that cannot be realized using conventional nanofabrication techniques. With its appeal to area as diverse as nanoscale optics and electronics, bio-mimetic, microfluidics and tissue engineering, Nanoscribe 3D promotes interdisciplinary collaborations between physicists, chemists, biologists, material scientists and engineers, and enables excellent educational opportunities for a diverse population of students at all levels (undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate).Technical: Current methods for fabrication of 3D structures are based on a sequence of layer-by-layer fabrication using standard planar techniques. This approach is costly, time-consuming, suffers from stringent alignment requirements between successive photolithography steps, and cannot produce arbitrary 3D geometries. Nanoscribe 3D takes advantage of multi-photon absorption processes that occur in the focal spot of tightly focused femto-second laser beam and can realize true 3D structures with ~100nm lateral and ~200nm vertical resolution. For optics research, the tool is used to realize hybrid meso-scale structures that combine bottom-up synthesized nano-materials (nanowires, quantum dots, etc) with top-down defined photonic components, including gratings, cavities, photonic crystals and meta-materials. Of interest to biomimetics research, ability to replicate complex biological structures is crucial, and enables deeper understanding of the functional morphology of these structures, including structural colors. Cell and tissue engineering research benefits from the tool?s ability to realize cm-sized scaffolds with micron-scale detail, as well as other structures. Finally, Nanoscribe 3D allows for efficient fabrication of 3D nanoelectronic arrays that can be used to measure extracellular and intracellular biological signals (e.g. from cardiac and neural cells and tissues).