Three-dimensional direct laser writing inspired by stimulated-emission-depletion microscopy [Invited]

Three-dimensional direct laser writing has become a well established, versatile, widespread, and even readily commercially available “workhorse” of nanoand micro-technology. However, its lateral and axial spatial resolution is inherently governed by Abbe’s diffraction limitation – analogous to optical microscopy. In microscopy, stimulated-emissiondepletion approaches have lately circumvented Abbe’s barrier and lateral resolutions down to 5.6 nm using visible light have been achieved. In this paper, after very briefly reviewing our previous efforts with respect to translating this success in optical microscopy to optical lithography, we present our latest results regarding resolution improvement in the lateral as well as in the much more relevant axial direction. The structures presented in this paper set a new resolution-benchmark for next-generation direct-laser-writing optical lithography. In particular, we break the lateral and the axial Abbe criterion for the first time. © 2011 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: (350.3390) Laser materials processing; (350.3450) Laser-induced chemistry; (220.4241) Nanostructure fabrication; (160.1245) Artificially engineered materials. References and links 1. H.-B. Sun, S. Matsuo, and H. Misawa, “Three-dimensional photonic crystal structures achieved with two-photonabsorption photopolymerization of resin,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 74, 786–788 (1999). 2. S. Kawata, H.-B. Sun, T. Tanaka, and K. Takada, “Finer features for functional microdevices,” Nature 412, 697– 698 (2001). 3. M. Straub and M. Gu, “Near-infrared photonic crystals with higher-order bandgaps generated by two-photon photopolymerization,” Opt. Lett. 27, 1824–1826 (2002). 4. M. Deubel, G. von Freymann, M. Wegener, S. Pereira, K. Busch, and C. M. Soukoulis, “Direct Laser Writing of Three-Dimensional Photonic Crystal Templates for Telecommunications,” Nature Mater. 3, 444–447 (2004). 5. G. von Freymann, A. Ledermann, M. Thiel, I. Staude, S. Essig, K. Busch, and M. Wegener, “Three-Dimensional Nanostructures for Photonics,” Adv. Funct. Mater. 20, 1038–1052 (2010). 6. A. Ledermann, L. Cademartiri, M. Hermatschweiler, C. Toninelli, G.A. Ozin, D.S. Wiersma, M. Wegener, and G. von Freymann, “Three-dimensional silicon inverse photonic quasicrystals for infrared wavelengths,” Nature Mater. 5, 942–945 (2036). 7. A. Ledermann, M. Wegener, and G. von Freymann, “Rhombicuboctahedral three-dimensional photonic quasicrystals,” Adv. Mater. 22, 2363–2366 (2010). 8. I. Staude, G. von Freymann, S. Essig, K. Busch, and M. Wegener, “Waveguides in three-dimensional photonicband-gap materials by direct laser writing and silicon double inversion,” Opt. Lett. 36, 67–69 (2010). #148341 $15.00 USD Received 27 May 2011; accepted 29 Jun 2011; published 13 Jul 2011 (C) 2011 OSA 1 August 2011 / Vol. 1, No. 4 / OPTICAL MATERIALS EXPRESS 614 9. J.K. Gansel, M. Thiel, M. S. Rill, M. Decker, K. Bade, V. Saile, G. von Freymann, S. Linden, and M. Wegener,“Gold helix photonic metamaterial as broadband circular polarizer,” Science 325, 1513–1515 (2009). 10. T. Ergin, N. Stenger, P. Brenner, J. B. Pendry, and M. Wegener, “Three-Dimensional Invisibility Cloak at Optical Wavelengths,” Science 328, 337–339 (2010). 11. F. Klein, T. Striebel, J. Fischer, Z. Jiang, C. M. Franz, G. von Freymann, M. Wegener, and M. Bastmeyer, “Elastic Fully Three-dimensional Microstructure Scaffolds for Cell Force Measurements,” Adv. Mater. 22, 868–871 (2010). 12. F. Klein, B. Richter, T. Striebel, C.M. Franz, G. von Freymann, M. Wegener, and M. Bastmeyer, “Two-component Polymer Scaffolds for Controlled Three-dimensional Cell Culture,” Adv. Mater. 23, 1341-1345 (2011). 13. http://www.nanoscribe.de 14. H. B. Sun, K. Takada, M. S. Kim, K. S. Lee, and S. Kawata, “Scaling laws of voxels in two-photon photopolymerization nanofabrication,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 83, 1104 (2003). 15. S. W. Hell and J. Wichmann, “Breaking the diffraction resolution limit by stimulated emission: stimulatedemission-depletion fluorescence microscopy,” Opt. Lett. 19, 780–782 (1994). 16. T.A. Klar, S. Jakobs, M. Dyba, A. Egner, and S. W. Hell, “Fluorescence microscopy with diffraction resolution barrier broken by stimulated emission,” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 97, 8206–8210 (2000). 17. V. Westphal and S. W. Hell, “Nanoscale Resolution in the Focal Plane of an Optical Microscope,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 143903 (2005). 18. S. W. Hell, “Far-Field Optical Nanoscopy,” Science 316, 1153–1158 (2007). 19. S. W. Hell, “Microscopy and its focal switch,” Nature Methods 6, 24–32 (2009). 20. S. W. Hell, R. Schmidt, and A. Egner, “Diffraction-unlimited three-dimensional optical nanoscopy with opposing lenses,” Nature Photon. 3, 381–387 (2009). 21. K. I. Willig, S. O. Rizzoli, V. Westphal, R. Jahn, and S. W. Hell, “STED microscopy reveals that synaptotagmin remains clustered after synaptic vesicle exocytosis,” Nature 440, 935–939 (2006). 22. E. Rittweger, K. Y. Han, S. E. Irvine, C. Eggeling, and S. W. Hell, “STED microscopy reveals crystal colour centres with nanometric resolution,” Nature Photon. 3, 144–147 (2009). 23. T. F. Scott, B. A. Kowalski, A. C. Sullivan, C. N. Bowman, and R. R. McLeod, “Two-Color Single-Photon Initiation and Photoinhibition for Subdiffraction Photolithography,” Science 324, 913–917 (2009). 24. L. Li, R. R. Gattass, E. Gershgoren, H. Hwang, and J. T. Fourkas, “Achieving λ/20 Resolution by One-Color Initiation and Deactivation of Polymerization,” Science 324, 910–913 (2009). 25. J. Fischer, G. von Freymann, and M. Wegener, “The materials challenge in diffraction-unlimited direct-laserwriting optical lithography,” Adv. Mater. 22, 3578–3582 (2010). 26. J. Fischer, T. Ergin, and M. Wegener, “Three-dimensional polarization-independent visible-frequency carpet invisibility cloak,” Opt. Lett. 36, 2059–2061 (2011). 27. T. Wolf, J. Fischer, M. Wegener, and A.-N. Unterreiner, Pump-probe spectroscopy on photoinitiators for stimulated-emission-depletion optical lithography, Opt. Lett. (to be published), Doc. ID 144270. 28. K.-M.Ho, C. T.Chan, C. M. Soukoulis, R. Biswas, and M. Sigalas, “Photonic band gaps in three dimensions: New layer-by-layer periodic structures,” Solid State Comm. 89, 413–416 (1994). 29. M. Deubel, M. Wegener, S. Linden, and G. von Freymann, “Angle-resolved transmission spectroscopy of threedimensional Photonic Crystals fabricated by direct laser writing,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 87, 221104 (2005). 30. I. Staude, M. Thiel, S. Essig, C. Wolff, K. Busch, G. von Freymann, and M. Wegener, “Fabrication and characterization of silicon woodpile photonic crystals with a complete bandgap at telecom wavelengths,” Opt. Lett. 35, 1094–1096 (2010). 31. W. Haske, V. W. Chen, J. M. Hales, W. Dong, S. Barlow, S. R. Marder, and J. W. Perry, , “65 nm feature sizes using visible wavelength 3-D multiphoton lithography,” Opt. Express 15, 3426–3436 (2007). 32. M. Thiel, J. Fischer, G. von Freymann, and M. Wegener, “Direct laser writing of three-dimensional submicron structures using a continuous-wave laser at 532 nm,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 97, 221102 (2010). 33. G. Subramania, Y.-J.Lee, A. J. Fischer, and D. D. Koleske, “Log-Pile TiO2 Photonic Crystal for Light Control at Near-UV and Visible Wavelengths,” Adv. Mater. 22, 487–491 (2010). 34. S. H. Park, T. W. Lim, D. Yang, R. H. Kim, and K. Lee, “Improvement of spatial resolution in nanostereolithography using radical quencher,” Macromol. Res. 14, 559–564 (2006).