Two-Photon Polymerization of Soft Matter Composites

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

Citations

Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/p8418n61t

Abstract

With two-photon photopolymerization (2PP), it is possible to design and produce composite materials with three dimensional control and sub-micron precision, thanks to highly localized nonlinear process of polymerization. In this work, the feasibility of fabricating mesostructured composite particles with pre-defined shape and topology is examined. We explored polymerizable materials from both commercial sources and laboratory products as well as variable laser parameters, including pulse width and intensity along with dwell time, to find optimum conditions for 2PP. Later 2PP was performed on polymerizable materials containing quantum dots dispersion and the optical response of the resultant composite was characterized with spectroscopy. In addition to regular isotropic photopolymers, elastomers with liquid crystal phase were also studied, paving the way for engineering composite materials with anisotropic thermomechanical responses.

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