Dynamic mechanical characterization of two-photon-polymerized SZ2080 photoresist

Abstract

Two-photon polymerization (2PP) is a material processing technique employed for the production of high-resolution microstructures. The high potential of this technique in the fabrication of structured materials, or metamaterials, has recently attracted significant research interest. To proceed toward real applications, the mechanical properties of the material obtained by 2PP should be known. These properties depend on all the process parameters, which affect the cross-linking between the polymeric chains, and very few results are available in the literature. In this work, we perform a systematic characterization of the elastic properties of femtosecond laser-polymerized SZ2080 (hybrid organic–inorganic photoresist) by combining dynamic experimental tests and numerical simulations on properly designed microstructures. Studying the resonance frequencies of micro-cantilevers, we demonstrate the possibility of tailoring the mechanical properties of the material by changing the laser irradiation conditions. This result paves the way to the use of 2PP for the fabrication of microdevices operating in a dynamic regime with optimized material properties.