Abstract
Selective laser sintering of metal nanoparticle ink is a low-temperature and non-vacuum technique developed for the fabrication of patterned metal layer on arbitrary substrates, but its application to a metal layer composed of large metal area with small voids is very much limited due to the increase in scanning time proportional to the metal pattern density. For the facile manufacturing of such metal layer, we introduce micropatterning of metal nanoparticle ink based on laser-induced thermocapillary flow as a complementary process to the previous selective laser sintering process for metal nanoparticle ink. By harnessing the shear flow of the solvent at large temperature gradient, the metal nanoparticles are selectively pushed away from the scanning path to create metal nanoparticle free trenches. These trenches are confirmed to be stable even after the complete process owing to the presence of the accompanying ridges as well as the bump created along the scanning path. As a representative example of a metal layer with large metal area and small voids, dark-field photomask with Alphabetic letters are firstly created by the proposed method and it is then demonstrated that the corresponding letters can be successfully reproduced on the screen by an achromatic lens.
Highlights
The development of novel manufacturing processes for nanomaterial is important to match rapidly increasing number of portable and personalized devices, while these processes can vary in great extent according to the constituent nanomaterials and target applications
The previous studies on selective laser sintering (SLS) process for Ag NP ink has been regarded as an additive manufacturing process, seeing that the metal pattern is created along the laser scanning path
Since the surface tension of a solvent decreases with the temperature in many cases (∂σ/∂T < 0), the thermocapillary force acts towards the direction of negative temperature gradient, i.e., away from the center of the focused laser spot [26]
Summary
The development of novel manufacturing processes for nanomaterial is important to match rapidly increasing number of portable and personalized devices, while these processes can vary in great extent according to the constituent nanomaterials and target applications These nanomaterials are firstly synthesized and processed through bottom-up approaches [1], but nanoscale structures can be prepared through different methods as well [2,3]. The SLS process is confirmed to be compatible with heat-sensitive flexible substrate [15,16] and stretchable elastomers [19] given that the laser parameters are carefully controlled Thanks to these advantages, the SLS of metal NP ink has been investigated extensively to date in order to expand applicable NPs [20,21,22] and potential applications [14,17,18]
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