Micro and Nanoscale Laser Processing of Hard Brittle Materials examines general laser-material interactions within this type of material, focusing on the nanoprocessing technologies that these phenomena have given rise to. Sections cover laser machining, healing, recovery, sintering, surface modification, texturing and microstructuring. These technologies all benefit from the characteristics of laser processing, its highly localized heating ability, and its well-defined optical properties. The book also describes frontier applications of the developed technologies, thus further emphasizing the possibility of processing hard brittle materials into complex structures with functional surfaces at both the micro and nanoscale. Provides readers with a solid understanding of laser-material interactions Helps readers choose suitable laser parameters for processing hard brittle materials Demonstrates how micro and nanoscale laser processing can be used to machine brittle materials without fracture

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the latest advances in laser techniques for micro-nano-manufacturing and an in-depth analysis of applications, such as 3D printing and nanojoining. Lasers have gained increasing significance as a precise tool for advanced manufacturing. Written by world leading scientists, the first part of the book presents the fundamentals of laser interaction with materials at the micro- and nanoscale, including multiphoton excitation and nonthermal melting, and allows readers to better understand advanced processing. In the second part, the authors focus on various advanced fabrications, such as laser peening, surface nanoengineering, and plasmonic heating. Finally, case studies are devoted to special applications, such as 3D printing, microfluidics devices, energy devices, and plasmonic and photonic waveguides. This book integrates both theoretical and experimental analysis. The combination of tutorial chapters and concentrated case studies will be critically attractive to undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and engineers in the relevant fields. Readers will grasp the full picture of the application of laser for micro-nanomanufacturing and 3D printing.

Femtosecond lasers opened up new avenue in materials processing due to its unique features of ultrashort pulse width and extremely high peak intensity. One of the most important features of femtosecond laser processing is that strong absorption can be induced even by materials which are transparent to the femtosecond laser beam due to nonlinear multiphoton absorption. The multiphoton absorption allows us to perform not only surface but also three-dimensionally internal microfabrication of transparent materials such as glass. This capability makes it possible to directly fabricate three-dimensional microfluidics, micromechanics, microelectronics and microoptics embedded in the glass. Further, these microcomponents can be easily integrated in a single glass microchip by the simple procedure using the femtosecond laser. Thus, the femtosecond laser processing provides some advantages over conventional methods such as traditional semiconductor processing or soft lithography for fabrication of microfluidic, optofludic and lab-on-a-chip devices and thereby many researches on this topic are currently being carried out. This book presents a comprehensive review on the state of the art and future prospects of femtosecond laser processing for fabrication of microfluidics and optofludics including principle of femtosecond laser processing, detailed fabrication procedures of each microcomponent and practical applications to biochemical analysis.

Femtosecond laser micromachining of transparent material is a powerful and versatile technology. In fact, it can be applied to several materials. It is a maskless technology that allows rapid device prototyping, has intrinsic three-dimensional capabilities and can produce both photonic and microfluidic devices. For these reasons it is ideally suited for the fabrication of complex microsystems with unprecedented functionalities. The book is mainly focused on micromachining of transparent materials which, due to the nonlinear absorption mechanism of ultrashort pulses, allows unique three-dimensional capabilities and can be exploited for the fabrication of complex microsystems with unprecedented functionalities.This book presents an overview of the state of the art of this rapidly emerging topic with contributions from leading experts in the field, ranging from principles of nonlinear material modification to fabrication techniques and applications to photonics and optofluidics.

Femtosecond laser ablation has interesting characteristics for micromachining, notably non-thermal interaction with materials, high peak intensity, precision and flexibility. In this dissertation, the potential of femtosecond laser ablation for fabrication of biomedical and electronic devices is studied. In a preliminary background discussion, some key literature regarding the basic physics and mechanisms that govern ultrafast laser pulse interaction with conductive materials and dielectric materials are summarized. In the dissertation work, results from systematic experiments were used characterize laser ablation of ITO (Indium Tin Oxide), stainless steel (hot embossing applications), polymers (PMMA, PDMS, PET, and PCL), glass, and fused quartz. Measured parameters and results include ablation threshold, damage threshold, surface roughness, single- and multiple-pulse ablation shapes and ablation efficiency. In addition to solid material, femtosecond laser light interaction with electrospun nano-fiber fiber mesh was analyzed and studied by optical property measurements. Ablation of channels in nano-fiber mesh was studied experimentally. Internal channel fabrication in glass and PMMA polymers was also demonstrated and studied experimentally. In summary, it is concluded that femtosecond laser ablation is a useful process for micromachining of materials to produce microfluidic channels commonly needed in biomedical devices such as micro-molecular magnetic separators and DNA stretching micro arrays. The surface roughness of ablated materials was found to be the primary issue for femtosecond laser fabrication of microfluid channels. Improved surface quality of channels by surface coating with HEMA polymer was demonstrated.