Research areas

Light Robotics
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Nanobiophotonics and Light Robotics

The synergy between nanotechnology, biotechnology and photonics has spawned the emerging field of nanobiophotonics. Optics and photonics already hurdle the diffraction barrier for imaging with nanoscopic resolutions, as celebrated by the Nobel Prize 2014 in Chemistry. However, scientific hypothesis testing demands tools, not only for passively observing nanoscopic phenomena, but also for actively reaching into and handling constituents in this tiny size domain.

 

Light-Actuated Microstructures

We have promoted the idea of fabricating a new class of light-actuated microstructures via two-photon polymerization and pioneered their use for so-called Light Robotics (light-driven micro-robotics). A strong scientific desire is to be able to combine advanced topology optimisation, microfabrication, surface functionalization and spatio-temporal light manipulation to demonstrate the structure-mediated micro-to-nano coupling paradigm for controlled operation of robotic tools overcoming the diffraction limit while still being optically manoeuvrable and observable.

 

Two-Photon Fabrication and Optical Control

3D printing based on two-photon fabrication can already today create intricate features merged into larger structures that, in turn, are steerable by dynamic light trapping beams. Applying multiple independently controllable laser beam traps on these structures can enable real-time light-driven microrobotics with six degrees of freedom.

 

Towards New Discoveries

This is already today pointing to new great discoveries by using calibrated steering of optimally shaped and functionalized tools at the subcellular level and in full 3D.