Aluminium surface work hardening enables multi-scale 3D lithography

Multi-scale structures are ubiquitous in biological systems. However, manufacturing man-made structures with controllable features spanning multiple length scales, particularly down to nanoscale features, is very challenging, which seriously impacts their collective properties. Here we introduce an aluminium-based three-dimensional lithography that combines sequential nano-micro-macro-imprinting and anodization of multi-scale anodic aluminium oxide templates to manufacture well-defined multi-scale structures, using various materials. The high-fidelity nano-patterns and micro-patterns were facilitated by the surface work hardening phenomenon, where the nano-patterns can be further fine-tailored by anodization to have high-aspect-ratio and tunable nano-holes. Based on the aluminium-based three-dimensional lithography, multi-scale materials across length scales of at least 10⁷ orders of magnitude were precisely fabricated, including carbon, semiconductors and metals. We integrated pressure sensors and biosensors with superior and customizable performances by tailoring the multi-scale carbon networks on different length scales from nanofibres and micropyramids to macrodome arrays. This work provides a versatile technique for prototyping on-demand multi-scale structures and materials to explore desirable mechanical and physical properties.