Microfabrication and Surface Functionalization of Soda Lime Glass through Direct Laser Interference Patterning

Abstract

All-purpose glasses are common in many established and emerging industries, such as microelectronics, photovoltaics, optical components, and biomedical devices due to their outstanding combination of mechanical, optical, thermal, and chemical properties. Surface functionalization through nano/micropatterning can further enhance glasses’ surface properties, expanding their applicability into new fields. Although laser structuring methods have been successfully employed on many absorbing materials, the processability of transparent materials with visible laser radiation has not been intensively studied, especially for producing structures smaller than 10 µm. Here, interference-based optical setups are used to directly pattern soda lime substrates through non-lineal absorption with ps-pulsed laser radiation in the visible spectrum. Line- and dot-like patterns are fabricated with spatial periods between 2.3 and 9.0 µm and aspect ratios up to 0.29. Furthermore, laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) with a feature size of approximately 300 nm are visible within these microstructures. The textured surfaces show significantly modified properties. Namely, the treated surfaces have an increased hydrophilic behavior, even reaching a super-hydrophilic state for some cases. In addition, the micropatterns act as relief diffraction gratings, which split incident light into diffraction modes. The process parameters were optimized to produce high-quality textures with super-hydrophilic properties and diffraction efficiencies above 30%.

Direct Laser Interference Ink Printing Using Copper Metal–Organic Decomposition Ink for Nanofabrication

“…When the beams cross each other, the power distribution changes to a periodic pattern, and the period of these patterns can be smaller than the wavelength of the laser. This phenomenon has been used in laser interference lithography (LIL) [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44] and direct laser interference patterning (DLIP) [45][46][47][48][49]. Although the present method, DLIIP, is similar to DLIP, DLIP uses laser interference for ablation, i.e., it is a subtractive process and, therefore, requires a high power.…”

Editorial: Special Issue “Laser-Generated Periodic Nanostructures”

“…We aimed to attract both academic and industrial researchers in order to collate the current knowledge of nanomaterials and to present new ideas for future applications and new technologies. By 8 August 2021, 22 scientific articles have been published in the Special Issue [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ], see .…”

“…Three “Feature Papers” [ 15 , 16 , 17 ] were invited by the Guest Editors for the adequate framing of this Special Issue. An additional 19 papers were published as regular contributions [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ].…”

“…An additional 19 papers were published as regular contributions [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ]. The publications in this Special Issue can generally be divided into three groups: (1) manuscripts related to self-organized laser-induced periodic surface structures [ 15 , 18 , 19 , 21 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 28 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ], (2) manuscripts related to interference-based periodic surface structuring [ 17 , 22 , 27 , 29 ], or (3) manuscripts combining both approaches [ 16 , 20 ].…”

“…Soldera et al [ 16 ] presented in their Feature Paper the two-beam DLIP structuring of soda lime glass with visible ps-laser pulses (532 nm, 12 ps or 70 ps, 10 kHz or 1 kHz). Periodic spot- and line-like surface textures were processed featuring spatial distances between 2.3 and 9.0 µm along with depth-to-diameter aspect ratios up to 0.29.…”