Journal Article

3D-printed silica with nanoscale resolution

Gao, Guanhui, Zhao, Yushun, Ajayan, Pulickel M., Bao, Jiming, Zhang, Boyu, Ye, Fan, Guo, Hua, Zhang, Xiang, Robinson, Jacob T., Lou, Jun, Fang, Qiyi, Wang, Weipeng, Wen, Xiewen, Nguyen, Christine, Yue, Shuai

2021

Overview

Fabricating inorganic materials with designed three-dimensional nanostructures is an exciting yet challenging area of research and industrial application. Here, we develop an approach to 3D print high-quality nanostructures of silica with sub-200 nm resolution and with the flexible capability of rare-earth element doping. The printed SiO 2 can be either amorphous glass or polycrystalline cristobalite controlled by the sintering process. The 3D-printed nanostructures demonstrate attractive optical properties. For instance, the fabricated micro-toroid optical resonators can reach quality factors ( Q ) of over 10 4 . Moreover, and importantly for optical applications, doping and codoping of rare-earth salts such as Er 3+ , Tm 3+ , Yb 3+ , Eu 3+ and Nd 3+ can be directly implemented in the printed SiO 2 structures, showing strong photoluminescence at the desired wavelengths. This technique shows the potential for building integrated microphotonics with silica via 3D printing. A 3D-printing technique has been developed to create high-quality pure silica nanostructures with sub-200 nm resolution and the flexible capability of rare-earth element doping. It shows excellent application potential in three-dimensional micro- and nanophotonics.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: 3-D printers / 639/301/930/1032 / 639/925/930/1032 / Biomaterials / Chemistry and Materials Science / Computer engineering / Condensed Matter Physics / Cristobalite / Doping / Earth / Erbium / Fourier transforms / Industrial applications / Inorganic materials / Materials Science / Microelectromechanical systems / Nanocomposites / Nanoparticles / Nanostructure / Nanotechnology / Optical and Electronic Materials / Optical properties / Optical resonators / Photoluminescence / Polymerization / Polymers / Rare earth elements / Silica / Silicon dioxide / Sintering / Three dimensional printing / Viscosity / Wavelengths / Ytterbium