Direct Laser Writing of Silica Nanoparticle Nanocomposites: Probing Mechanical Reinforcement and Understanding Structural Color from Design Parameters

Nanocomposite materials have been thoroughly exploited in additive manufacturing, as a means to alter physical, chemical, and optical properties of resulting structures. Herein, nanocomposite materials suitable for direct laser writing (DLW) by two-photon polymerization are presented. These materials, comprising silica nanoparticles, bring significant added value to the technology through physical reinforcement and controllable photonic properties. Incorporation into acrylate photoresists, via a one-step fabrication process, enables the formation of complex structures with large overhangs. The inclusion of 150 nm silica nanoparticles in DLW photoresists at high concentrations, allows for the fabrication of composite microstructures that show reflected color, a product of the relative contributions from the quasi-ordering and random scattering. Using common DLW design parameters, such as slicing distance and structure dimension, a wide gamut of structural color, in solution, using a set concentration of nanoparticles is demonstrated. Numerical modeling is employed to predict the reflected wavelength of the pixel arrays, across the visible spectrum, and this information is used to encode reflected colors into different pixel arrays. Composite photoresists containing silica nanoparticles are demonstrated for direct laser writing by two-photon polymerization. Microstructures fabricated using such nanocomposites are determined to have superior mechanical and optical properties. It is further demonstrated that the structural color of the microstructures can be easily tuned by controlling the design and fabrication parameters. image