Optical fibers are nowadays an ubiquitous core element of telecommunication systems, new laser technologies and biomedical devices. Manufacturing techniques for optical fibers have been developed and refined in order create manifold geometries and optical properties (e.g. Dual clad fibers, fiber bundles, Photonic Crystal Fibers, to name a few). Yet the capability to fabricate complex miniaturized structures integrated with optical fibers to realize important optical functions (like beam shaping, beam deflection, fiber optical tweezers, etc.) has been demonstrated only very recently.
We focus on the fabrication of novel optical structures on the tip of optical fibers exploiting to flexibility, resolution and 3D fabrication capability of Laser Direct Writing based on Two-Photon Lithography (TPL). Applications range from optical telecommunications to fiber imaging and fiber optical tweezers.
