Photonic crystals are periodic dielectric microstructures highly regarded as the key element that will lead to breakthrough in optical technology and miniaturized optical devices, due to their unique capabilities in controlling the emission and propagation of light by means of their photonic band gap (PBG) effects. Microstructuring of 3D photonic crystals is not a trivial task, but is achievable using novel ultrafast laser microfabrication approach; namely the direct laser writing (DLW) and the multibeam interference technique. DLW works by tightly-focusing an ultrafast laser beam into a photosensitive material to directly record intended structures. Because of its intrinsic patterning capability, DLW is able to craft 3D photonic crystals based on the spiral architecture, which has very promising PBG properties, but is not amenable to fabrication by other techniques due to its complex profile. Multibeam interference works by splitting an ultrashort pulsed laser into several beams and creating an interference pattern from these splitted beams, which is then transferred onto a photosensitive material. Its strength lies in the ability to structure 2D/3D photonic crystals over a large area (-millimeter order) within several minutes timeframe.
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