Advancing Multiphoton 3D Lithography and 4D Printing Innovation
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/06/28
Prof. Mangirdas Malinauskas is a leading physicist at Vilnius University’s Laser Research Center and the senior author of the first global primer on multiphoton 3D lithography, published in Nature Reviews Methods Primers. His research focuses on advancing the industrial scalability and material versatility of this laser-based technology. Prof. Malinauskas champions its potential in multi-material and 4D printing, and collaborates with global pioneers such as Profs. Shoji Maruo, Georg von Freymann, and Julia Greer. His work bridges fundamental physics and real-world applications across micro-optics, biomedicine, electronics, and materials science, positioning Lithuania at the forefront of photonic innovation.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What were the motivations for advancing multiphoton 3D lithography?
Prof. Mangirdas Malinauskas: The main motivation to advance multiphoton 3D lithography is to make it practically feasible for industrial applications and standardize as a tool for advanced additive manufacturing. This mainly deals with increasing the fabrication throughput / scalability and reproducibility. On the other hand, scientific wise it is very intriguing to push it forward for multi-material printing as well as apply as 4D printing tool offering tunable / environment stimuli responsive properties.
Jacobsen: Which critical knowledge gaps does the 3D Lithography guide fill?
Malinauskas: The primer fills the gap of uniform knowledge and balanced experts opinion. Since this scientific field is very promising and dynamic in development, there are many different distinct research groups worldwide which focus their research to specific topics. Due to the scientific competition, which drives to continuously make latest-greatest achievements, it is common that one group will emphasize a set new record on spatial resolution, the other breakthrough on writing speed, and one more accent the novel functional materials. However, for the newcomer or even for an experience user it gives ambiguous understanding on what is the most important issues to start and optimize their own lab / approach.
Jacobsen: How do the fundamental physical principles and methodologies presented in the primer enhance existing two‑photon polymerisation techniques?
Malinauskas: The guide clearly and sufficiently in depth describes the essence needed to construct a new or exploit the existing multiphoton 3D lithography setup. What kind of materials and applications are established and which are still novel yet not sufficiently explored. As authors we believe it can help get a full and generalized understanding, prior to switching to specific experiments or trying to establish in industrial line. For younger students it should be also inspiring to see which fields are to grow fastest and benefit most.
Jacobsen: How do experts–Prof. Shoji Maruo, Prof. Georg von Freymann, and Prof. Julia Greer–contribute to the authority and cohesion of the guide?
Malinauskas: As a lead author of the paper I really wanted to have Prof. Shoji Maruo, the pioneer of the multiphoton 3D lithography to be in our team. Firstly, to agree on touched historical aspect, and secondly, to present his own ongoing active research and current vision. Prof. Georg von Freymann was an idol scientist since I first met him in 2009. I am still every single time amazed regarding his high quality research and simple presentation of complex things. And finally, no one can catch up with the pace of Prof. Julia Greer – always new and unexpected results are flowing from her lab. She is a brilliant in making the fresh discoveries contribute to the continuous grow of the multiphoton 3D lithography field.
Jacobsen: What unique advantages do green‑light lasers provide over traditional infrared systems?
Malinauskas: Initially green light-lasers were seen as the ones which will help increasing the resolution, due to their shorter wavelength and correspondingly smaller diffraction limited spot (in comparison to typical near infrared wavelengths). Yet, the science is amazing and once again revealing it experimentally proved to “expect unexpected”. The resolution was not improved, yet the fabrication throughput and versatility of usable materials widened significantly.
Jacobsen: How does the primer recommend that new laboratories be configured for these type of lithography experiments?
Malinauskas: The tutorial paper clearly explains unique advantages of 3D micro-/nano-lithography realized via multi-photon absorption, which are: true 3D manufacturing capacity, diversity of usable materials and substrates, no cleanroom or vacuum necessity, scalability and integration with other methods, potential to manufacture multi-material structures and implement 4D printing.
Jacobsen: What could be some applications in micro‑optics, biomedicine, electronics, and materials science?
Malinauskas: As for microoptics, it can be readily be used for imaging, signal transferring and conversion, micro-processing, integrated beam delivery. Biomedicine benefits for rapid prototyping of customized geometry and materials 3D scaffold production, both for cell culturing in vitro and implantation in vivo. Electronics will benefit from 3D space, due to currently everything is established on 2D chips. Though it multiphoton lithography cannot reach the high resolution offered by planar extreme UV lithography methods, but there is very much space in 3D to exploit. Material engineering is benefiting in multiple aspects, as both the functional materials can be 3D structured enhancing their applications, and also the materials can be studied how they behave at specific arrangements in space and volume (amount of material). For instance, making sub-micrometer pitch woodpile structure reduces the volume of material significantly at the same time dramatically increasing the surface area. Just imagine one can make 3D gut or 3D lungs with alveola arranging in any architecture. And all of this can be done in a controllable fashion.
Jacobsen: What could be future research directions for technological innovations in multiphoton 3D lithography?
Malinauskas: Definitely ML, DL, and AI tools will be implemented here and will solve lots of multiparameter systematics studies. At the same time multiphoton 3D lithography will contribute to the fields of super-resolution microscopy, precision material processing, telecommunications, 3D meta-surfaces and quantum technologies, novel multi-sensing options.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Mangirdas.
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