Laser Induced Forward Transfer (LIFT) using femtosecond laser pulses: laser printing of functional materials

Eason, R.W., Banks, D.P., Kaur, K.S., Sones, C.L. and Feinäugle, M. (2011) Laser Induced Forward Transfer (LIFT) using femtosecond laser pulses: laser printing of functional materials. Invited Talk, Twente, Netherlands.

Abstract

Laser induced forward transfer (LIFT) is a versatile direct-write method for spatially selective printing of a wide range of materials. In the conventional LIFT technique a thin film (usually of thickness < 1 µm) of the material (the donor) to be printed is deposited on top of a substrate (the carrier) which is transparent to the incident laser wavelength. A laser pulse is then focussed/imaged onto the carrier-donor interface which induces the necessary impulsive force to push the donor onto a substrate placed nearby (the receiver) either by melting it (for the case of a sufficiently thin donor) or ablating the top layer (the thick donor case).
In this talk, I shall describe our progress to date using femtosecond light pulses for LIFTing, and discuss what we have been able to achieve using sacrificial absorbing layers to provide the impulsive push, pre-machining of the donor, active and passive spatial beam shaping of the laser profile, use of LIFT to print source material for optical waveguide fabrication, and printing of the smallest metallic dots so far (300nm diameter).

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Contributors

Author: R.W. Eason

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