Multi-focus multi-photon 3D printing of microstructured chiral mechanical metamaterials with large characteristic length

At Photonics West 2020, we reported progress on rapid multi-focus multi-photon 3D laser printing, enabling printing rates of up to ten million voxels/s at voxel sizes of about 400 nm (mean of lateral and axial extent). Meanwhile, we have refined and improved this setup. Here, we present three-dimensional chiral mechanical metamaterials with tailorable characteristic length as a scientific application. The characteristic length is as large as 10 unit cells. The largest 3D printed samples have a side length of 27 unit cells, corresponding to 118,098 unit cells total. Our experimental findings are in good qualitative agreement with modeling.