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Controlled in situ deposition opens new possibilities for ultrafast laser surface micro/nanostructuring. Credit: Peixun Fan, Guochen Jiang, Xinyu Hu, Lizhong Wang, Hongjun Zhang, Minlin Zhong
Surface functionalization through micro/nanostructuring is not only a thriving research field inspired by bionics, but also of great importance for various practical applications. The key to achieving a variety of surface functionalities is the fabrication of surface micro/nanostructures with controlled dimensions, hierarchy, and composition, which is driving continued advances in micro/nano fabrication techniques.
Researchers at the Laser Materials Processing Research Center, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, China, have spent years developing laser-enabled manufacturing techniques to prepare surface micro/nanostructures and explore their functional applications. .
A work entitled “”Localized in-situ deposition: a new dimension for control in the fabrication of surface micro/nanostructures by ultrafast laser ablation” Published in Frontier of optoelectronics.
The researchers say they have established the ability to finely control microscale and nanoscale features individually and how they are combined to form different types of multilevel structures. Features and applications they investigated include extreme wettability, anti-icing, broadband optical absorption, structural color, solar water evaporation, thermal interface management, tribological properties, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, and photoelectrocatalysis for energy applications. and so on.
Using ultrafast lasers to gain greater control over structural fabrication and develop more flexible manufacturing approaches is one of the focuses of their continued research. They recently demonstrated that in addition to controlling the ultrafast laser ablation process, the in situ deposition of particles after ultrafast laser ablation of solid surfaces can also be controlled and can be used as a localized microadditive process to build up hierarchical surface structures. I have proven it.
Plasma plume formation is a universal phenomenon that occurs during pulsed laser ablation of solids. The products (nanoparticles) from the plasma plume can be collected for use in external liquids (for laser ablation in liquids) or substrates (for pulsed laser deposition).
In contrast, some of the nanoparticles from the plasma plume are deposited back onto the irradiated surface in situ during ultrafast laser surface structuring. In certain applications, in situ deposited structural features play an important role in improving surface properties such as light absorption, sensitivity, and energy conversion.
However, whether and how the in situ deposition process can be controlled remains an open question. Their recent work shows the ability to control the deposition process in situ, for example by building fort-like structures on top of microcone arrays, rather than simply producing randomly distributed nanoparticles. Ta. The revealed laser-matter interaction mechanism may stimulate future research interest in exploring new possibilities in the fabrication of functional surface micro/nanostructures using ultrafast lasers.
For more information:
Peixun Fan et al., Localized in-situ deposition: a new dimension of control in the fabrication of surface micro/nanostructures by ultrafast laser ablation, Frontier of optoelectronics (2023). DOI: 10.1007/s12200-023-00092-1
Provided by Higher Education Press