Femtosecond laser based micro/nano-additive manufacturing (Conference Presentation)

Abstract

There have been extensive research on micro/nano additive manufacturing methods employing laser (or optical) and ion/electron beams. Many of these processes utilize specially designed photosensitive materials consisting of additives and effective components. Due to the presence of additive (such as polymer and binders), the effective components are relatively low resulting in high threshold for device operation. In order to direct print functional devices at low cost, there has been extensive research on laser processing of pre-synthesized nanomaterials for non-polymer functional device manufacturing. Pre-synthesized nanocrystals can have better control in the stoichiometry and crystallinity. In addition, pre-synthesis process enjoys the flexibility in material choice since a variety of materials can be synthesized. In this paper, we report femtosecond laser assembly and deposition of nanomaterials for 3D micro/nano additive manufacturing. The laser-nanomaterial interaction and nanomaterial transport under laser excitation and modification are studied. A scheme to directly printing functional nanostructures was demonstrated by laser excitation of gold nanocrystals. The scheme paves the way for laser selective electrophoretic deposition as a micro/nanoscale additive manufacturing approach.