Preparation of metallo-dielectric photonic crystals by multi-photon direct laser writing

Metallo-dielectric photonic crystals (MDPCs) can exhibit intriguing and potentially useful optical properties, including ultra-wide photonic bandgaps, engineered thermal emission, and negative refractive index. But access to such materials has been limited by the lack of suitable methods for their preparation. We have developed a route to three-dimensional (3D) MDPCs that involves fabricating a polymeric pre-form by multi-photon direct laser writing and then conformally depositing metal onto the pre-form by electroless metallization. We use the approach to prepare silver- and copper-plated "woodpile" PCs having face-centered tetragonal symmetry and unit-cell period of several micrometers. The resulting 3D metallized structures exhibit mid-infrared reflectance that is consistent with theory and experimental observations obtained for MDPCs prepared by other routes. These data indicate that multi-photon direct laser writing coupled with electroless metallization is a viable route to complex 3D MDPCs of many symmetries and basis sets and provides a path for integrating such structures with other micron-scale optical elements.