Direct laser writing of three dimensional network structures as templates for disordered photonic materials

Abstract

In the present article we substantially expand on our recent study about the fabrication of mesoscale polymeric templates of disordered photonic network materials. We present a detailed analysis and discussion of important technical aspects related to the fabrication and characterization of these fascinating materials. Compared to our initial report we were able to reduce the typical structural length scale of the seed pattern from $a=3.3\mu m$ to $a=2\mu m$, bringing it closer to the technologically relevant fiber-optic communications wavelength range around $\lambda \sim 1.5\mu m$. We have employed scanning electron microscopy coupled with focused ion beam cutting to look inside the bulk of the samples of different height. Moreover we demonstrate the use of laser scanning confocal microscopy to assess the real space structure of the samples fabricated by direct laser writing. We address in detail question about scalability, finite size effects and geometrical distortions. We also study the effect of the lithographic voxel shape, that is the ellipsoidal shape of the laser pen used in the fabrication process. To this end we employ detailed numerical modelling of the scattering function using a discrete dipole approximation scheme.

accepted for publication in Physical Review A (regular article)

References in corpus (4)

• Designer disordered materials with large complete photonic band gaps
• Classical Disordered Ground States: Super-Ideal Gases, and Stealth and Equi-Luminous Materials
• Photonic band gap in isotropic hyperuniform disordered solids with low dielectric contrast
• Fabrication of mesoscale polymeric templates for three-dimensional disordered photonic materials

Cited by in corpus (20)

• Light fields in complex media: mesoscopic scattering meets wave control
• Hyperuniform States of Matter
• Avian photoreceptor patterns represent a disordered hyperuniform solution to a multiscale packing problem
• Hyperuniformity and its Generalizations
• Ensemble Theory for Stealthy Hyperuniform Disordered Ground States
• Basic Understanding of Condensed Phases of Matter via Packing Models
• Light in correlated disordered media
• Hyperuniformity of Quasicrystals
• Random Scalar Fields and Hyperuniformity
• Ground states of stealthy hyperuniform potentials: I. Entropically favored configurations
• Disordered Hyperuniform Heterogeneous Materials
• Generalized stealthy hyperuniform processes : maximal rigidity and the bounded holes conjecture
• Optimized White Reflectance in Photonic Network Structures
• Photonic hyperuniform networks by silicon double inversion of polymer templates
• Optimized Large Hyperuniform Binary Colloidal Suspensions in Two Dimensions
• Fluctuation and Entropy in Spectrally Constrained random fields
• Observation of mutual extinction and transparency in light scattering
• Uniform line fillings
• Deterministic and controllable photonic scattering media via direct laser writing
• Sensing the position of a single scatterer in an opaque medium by mutual scattering