Fabrication Processes Developed for 3-D Polymeric Photonic Crystals Published June 4, 2007 By Materials & Manufacturing Directorate AFRL/ML WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- As part an AFRL Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I effort, Omega Optics, Inc., and EM Photonics, Inc., successfully developed fabrication processes for constructing three-dimensional (3-D) polymeric photonic crystals. Having now proceeded to SBIR Phase II activities, the researchers are developing a polymeric photonic crystal superprism, a material structure that magnifies small changes in incident beam angles to produce large changes in a laser beam's propagation direction. This new material has many applications, including sensing, electro-optics, lasing, and light emitting diodes; one example of such usage would be as the enabling material for high-speed laser beam steering. Photonic crystals represent a powerful method for fabricating new, artificially structured materials with optical properties engineered to address specific applications. The fusing of these two technologies represents an innovative platform for high-performance photonics. This technology may benefit a range of important applications, such as laser beam steering, biological and chemical sensing, materials for integrated photonics devices, and optical detector arrays. Photonic crystals represent a truly revolutionary approach to optical engineering. The great power and flexibility achieved by engineering photonic crystal nanostructures has prompted an explosion of interest towards applying the technology to numerous areas within optical engineering. Because photonic crystal engineering enables researchers to tailor the optical properties of a material using nanostructuring, it bypasses the typical constraints associated with a specific chemical species' given properties.