Micro and nanostructuration of polymer materials and applications

Polymer materials offer unique opportunities in nanophotonics and nanobiosystems since both top-down and bottom-up strategies can be pursued and combined towards the nanoscale. Besides, polymer materials can be, with simple methods, functionalized with nonlinear optical or fluorescent materials (organic, inorganic, or metal). The ensemble can be optically structured in a flexible way to obtain a polymer-based photonic nanostructure (host) containing active materials (guest), which may provide an enhancement of the guest optical response, leading to attractive applications. We have developed two important fabrication techniques, namely interference and one-photon absorption direct laser writing, which present different advantages and allow both to obtain desired micro and nanometric 2D and 3D structures. These polymer-based structures are promising for many potential applications, for example, laser, nonlinear optics, and plasmonics.