Materials Chemistry in 3D Templates for Functional Photonics

This Perspective overviews many of the developments in templated porous three-dimensional photonics, with a particular focus on functional architectures, and provides suggestions for future opportunities for research. A significant diversity of 3D structures is available today with characteristic dimensions appropriate for providing strong light–matter interactions, in no small part due to recent advances in 3D patterning techniques. However, the optical functionality of these structures has generally remained limited. Advances in materials chemistry have the opportunity to dramatically increase the function of templated 3D photonics, and a few examples of highly functional templated 3D photonics for sensing, solar energy harvesting, optical metamaterials, and light emission are presented as first examples of success.