3D printing colloidal crystal microstructures via sacrificial-scaffold-mediated two-photon lithography.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35931721.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-32317-w and PMC identifier 9355982.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The orderly arrangement of nanomaterials' tiny units at the nanometer-scale accounts for a substantial part of their remarkable properties. Maintaining this orderness and meanwhile endowing the nanomaterials with highly precise and free-designed 3D micro architectures will open an exciting prospect for various novel applications. In this paper, we developed a sacrificial-scaffold-mediated two-photon lithography (TPL) strategy that enables the fabrication of complex 3D colloidal crystal microstructures with orderly-arranged nanoparticles inside. We show that, with the help of a degradable hydrogel scaffold, the disturbance effect of the femtosecond laser to the nanoparticle self-assembling could be overcome. Therefore, hydrogel-state and solid-state colloidal crystal microstructures with diverse compositions, free-designed geometries and variable structural colors could be easily fabricated. This enables the possibility to create novel colloidal crystal microsensing systems that have not been achieved before.