Acousto-optic scanning spatial-switching multiphoton lithography

Abstract

Nano-3D printing has obtained widespread attention owing to its capacity to manufacture end-use components with nano-scale features in recent years. Multiphoton lithography (MPL) is one of the most promising 3D nanomanufacturing technologies, which has been widely used in manufacturing micro-optics, photonic crystals, microfluidics, meta-surface, and mechanical metamaterials. Despite of tremendous potential of MPL in laboratorial and industrial applications, simultaneous achievement of high throughput, high accuracy, high design freedom, and a broad range of material structuring capabilities remains a long-pending challenge. To address the issue, we propose an acousto-optic scanning with spatial-switching multispots (AOSS) method. Inertia-free acousto-optic scanning and nonlinear swept techniques have been developed for achieving ultrahigh-speed and aberration-free scanning. Moreover, a spatial optical switch concept has been implemented to significantly boost the lithography throughput while maintaining high resolution and high design freedom. An eight-foci AOSS system has demonstrated a record-high 3D printing rate of 7.6 × 107 voxel s−1, which is nearly one order of magnitude higher than earlier scanning MPL, exhibiting its promise for future scalable 3D nanomanufacturing.