Exploiting Direct Laser Writing for Hydrogel Integration into Fragile Microelectromechanical Systems.

The integration of chemo-responsive hydrogels into fragile microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) with reflective surfaces in the micron to submicron range is presented. Direct laser writing (DLW) for 3D microstructuring of chemoresponsive "smart" hydrogels on sensitive microstructures is demonstrated and discussed in detail, by production of thin hydrogel layers and discs with a controllable lateral size of 2 to 5 µm and a thickness of some hundred nm. Screening results of polymerizing laser settings for precision microstructuring were determined by controlling crosslinking and limiting active chain diffusion during polymerization with macromers.

Electrically Reconfigurable Micromirror Array for Direct Spatial Light Modulation of Terahertz Waves over a Bandwidth Wider Than 1 THz.

We report the design, fabrication and experimental investigation of a spectrally wide-band terahertz spatial light modulator (THz-SLM) based on an array of 768 actuatable mirrors with each having a length of 220 μm and a width of 100 μm. A mirror length of several hundred micrometers is required to reduce diffraction from individual mirrors at terahertz frequencies and to increase the pixel-to-pixel modulation contrast of the THz-SLM. By means of spatially selective actuation, we used the mirror array as reconfigurable grating to spatially modulate terahertz waves in a frequency range from 0.