Abstract

In this contribution, our recent advances in three-dimensional microstructuring of photosensitive materials by multiphoton illumination technique are presented. In our work near-infrared Ti:sapphire femtosecond laser pulses (at 800/780 nm) are applied for 3D material processing. When tightly focused into the volume of a UV-photosensitive material they interact with material through two-photon absorption. As a result a highly localised material modification appears. This can be, for example, polymerization process, transferring liquid into the solid state. Moving the laser focus in 3D leaves the trace of modified material. This allows the fabrication of any computer generated 3D structure by direct laser “recording” into the volume of photosensitive material. After the illumination, the unmodified material is removed by an appropriate developer, and the fabricated structure is revealed. The example of such structure is presented in the figure 1. The CAD generated design (a) and the according polymeric structure (b) represent microneedles for transdermal drug delivery.

© 2007 Optical Society of America