3D two-photon printing of hetero-microstructures by in-situ alignment of liquid-crystal elastomers

Abstract

We present a novel two-photon 3D printing approach based on a dedicated resist chamber in which we apply a quasi-static electric field with variable orientation and amplitude during the 3D printing process. This allows aligning the director of not yet polymerized liquid-crystal elastomer resist. After two-photon exposure, the alignment is “frozen” in the polymerized voxel. For the next voxel, the electric field vector can be changed, etc. In this manner, we can 3D print hetero-microstructures of liquid-crystal elastomers. We envision applications under ambient conditions where mechanical actuation is induced by temperature variation or by focused light.