Shaping both Light & Material for Optimal Light‐Matter Interaction.

The sci‐fi inspired miniaturization of full‐scale robotic manipulation down to the mesoscopic scale regime opens new doors for exploiting the forces of photons for micro‐ and nanobiologic probing, actuation and control [1‐3]. A generic approach for optimizing light‐matter interaction on these scales involves the combination of optimal light‐sculpting [4] with the use of optimized shapes in micro‐ and nano‐robotic structures [5]. Micro‐fabrication processes such as two‐photon photo‐polymerization offer three‐dimensional resolutions for crafting custom‐designed monolithic microstructures that can be equipped with optical trapping handles for convenient opto‐mechanical control using only optical forces. Such microstructures ‐ as illustrated above ‐ can be effectively handled with simultaneous top‐ and side‐view on our proprietary BioPhotonics Workstation (BWS) to undertake six‐degree‐of‐freedom optical actuation of tiny 3D‐printed tip‐structures easily entering the submicron‐regime. Aided by our international collaborators who fabricated test structures for us, we were able to put our pioneering concept of optically steerable freestanding waveguides – coined: wave‐guided optical waveguides ‐ to the test using our BWS [7]. We have also proposed using these techniques for generating two‐photon real‐time spatially sculpted light for the strongly emerging areas of neurophotonics and optogenetics.