Three-dimensional periodic structures for enhancing light-matter interaction and energy storage
Three-dimensional (3D) periodic architectures hold great promise for applications ranging from manipulating the flow of light for integrated photonics to high power and high energy batteries. Among the approaches to fabricate 3D meso-structured materials, colloidal self-assembly and holographic lithography are particularly attractive owing to their ability to create large, uniform templates. However, these 3D structures require extrinsic functionalities (e.g. emitters, microcavities or energy materials) to fully utilize their potentials. This thesis focused on additions of functional defects to the 3D networks and studied the enhanced interactions between the embedded defects and the 3D host materials. A method based on epitaxial colloidal opal growth was developed to place fluorescent nanoparticles at specific locations inside 3D silicon inverse opal photonic crystals (PhCs), allowing the coupling between high dielectric contrast PhCs and localized emitters to be investigated. Transfer-printing was next used to assemble a new type of 3D PhC vertical microcavity consisting of a planar defect sandwiched between two silicon inverse opals. This technique was similarly applied to embed pre-defined high-quality defects into 3D holographic PhCs. Objects such as nanoparticle films, spheres, and emitters served as defects and were introduced to well-defined positions. Finally, interdigitated microbatteries were created from templates defined by both 3D holographic lithography and conventional UV lithography. The influence of electrode width on liquid-phase ion diffusion was studied, which provided design parameters of microbatteries for practical applications.
microbatteries, light-matter interaction, microcavities, 3D photonic crystals
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign