Multiphoton lithography : techniques, materials and applications

Nanotechnology has great potential in manufacturing, manipulating, observing, and functioning of materials, and understanding the physics and chemistry at the nanoscale, but it is limited to surface science and technology in two dimensions, with use of, for example, e-beam, ion beam, light beam, and atomic force through the processes of illumination, deposition, etching, andmodification of the surface. Available nanotechnological devices such as nanoelectronic circuits, high-density data storage, liquid-crystal displays, and micro and nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMSs and NEMSs) are all basically of two dimensions. However, future nanotechnology, in particular nanomanufacturing, should be made in three dimensions similar to the existing ordinary machinery. In the book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (Doubleday, 1986), the author Eric Drexler discusses future nanotechnologies such as molecular assemblers, atom-by-atom building, and self-replicating machines. In the novel Prey (Harper Collins, 2002), Michael Crichton describes a machine that makes nanobots from bacteria, which turn into a nano-swarm attacking humans. The nanomachines appearing in those books are all three-dimensional machines.