Laser direct writing of nanocompounds

Abstract

Laser direct polymerization has been proven as a powerful tool to generate microstructures. Often photosensitive polymer materials are used because they can be tuned by photoactive molecules to be susceptible to a specific wavelength of light to initiate the polymerization process. One of the main drawbacks of this technique is the lack of functional polymers, e.g. conductive, magnetic, mechanical, optical or bioactive materials. Nanocomposites (nanocompounds), i.e. polymers with inorganic nanomaterials incorporated in the matrix offer a huge variety of new functionalities. A new approach will be presented how functional nanocomposite polymers can be generated and used for laser direct writing techniques. This can open the door for completely new MEMS and MOEMS devices comprising active and passive subcomponents.

Comparison of in Situ and ex Situ Methods for Synthesis of Two-Photon Polymerization Polymer Nanocomposites

“…Photosensitive nanocomposites can be synthesized by adding TiO 2 nanoparticles. In comparision with common photoresists these materials have been applied to fabricate microstructures by two-photon polymerization (2PP) [13][14][15][16]. 2PP processing is a polymerization process initiated by two-photon absorption (2PA).…”