High-Repetition-Rate Projection Multiphoton Lithography for Large-Area Sub-Micron 3D Printing

TL;DR

This paper introduces a high-speed, high-resolution 3D printing platform using holographic projection and beam shaping, enabling scalable manufacturing of micro-optical components with over a million voxels per second.

Contribution

The work presents a novel holographic 3D printing system that combines femtosecond laser, spectral pulse compression, and DMD-based beam shaping for rapid, high-resolution fabrication.

Findings

Achieved over a million voxels per second throughput.

Demonstrated sub-micron resolution below 400 nm.

Validated large-area micro-optical component fabrication.

Abstract

High-resolution lithographic techniques are often limited by low volumetric throughput, since there is no universal and scalable manufacturing process that can produce 3D metasurfaces. In this work, we demonstrate a high-speed holographic 3D printing platform based on spatiotemporal beam shaping, exceeding the repetition rate while keeping the resolution high. The system integrates a femtosecond laser source with a spectral pulse compressor and a beam shaper to project uniform, axially confined light fields to project patterns directly on the advanced photoresists using a Digital Micromirror Device DMD. We investigate the process window for rapid polymerization, optimizing the photoinitiator choice to eliminate thermal crosstalk at high repetition rates. Using this setup, we achieve a production throughput of more than a million voxels per second with sub-micron resolution below 400 nm. The system's reliability is validated through the fabrication of large-area woodpile-like lattices and uniform micropillar arrays, establishing a workflow for scalable manufacturing of micro-optical components.