AVS 63rd International Symposium & Exhibition
    Nanometer-scale Science and Technology Monday Sessions
       Session NS-MoM

Invited Paper NS-MoM3
Applications of 2-photo 3D Stereolithography to Aerial Microrobots and Air-Microfluidics

Monday, November 7, 2016, 9:00 am, Room 101D

Session: Nanopatterning and Nanofabrication + 3D
Presenter: Igor Paprotny, University of Illinois at Chicago
Correspondent: Click to Email
Additive manufacturing, commonly called 3D printing, is currently revolutionizing manufacturing worldwide. Two-photon polymerization has in the last decade been used as an novel 3D stereolithography method that enables the fabrication of microscale structures with a resolution on the order of 100s nanometers. The ability to 3D print microscale structures enables development of novel microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) that transcend traditional top-down micromachining processes. This talk will review the theory of 2-photon polymerization and the applications of this method to microstereolithography. I will also review two novel applications of this technique to MEMS devices fabricated in the Micromechatronic Systems Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago. One application is the investigation of microscale flight, where two-photon stereolithography is used to develop test structures and devices that hover upon application of a localized thermal gradient. New results, enabled by our ability to 3D print ‘microflier’ designs with varying geometry, show similarity to flight performance observed in microscale flying insects. This talk will also describe the application of two-photon microstereolithography to air-microfluidics, where the creation of microfluidic channels with complex geometries have tremendous applications to the development of lab-on-a-chip sensors for air quality and gas measurements. Several examples of such air-microfluidics circuits are presented and discussed.