Utilizing a Diffractive Focus Beam Shaper to Enhance Pattern Uniformity and Process Throughput during Direct Laser Interference Patterning

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

Uniform periodic microstructure formation over large areas is generally challenging in Direct Laser Interference Patterning (DLIP) due to the Gaussian laser beam intensity distribution inherent to most commercial laser sources. In this work, a diffractive fundamental beam-mode shaper (FBS) element is implemented in a four-beam DLIP optical setup to generate a square-shaped top-hat intensity distribution in the interference volume. The interference patterns produced by a standard configuration and the developed setup are measured and compared. In particular, the impact of both laser intensity distributions on process throughput as well as fill-factor is investigated by measuring the resulting microstructure height with height error over the structured surface. It is demonstrated that by utilizing top-hat-shaped interference patterns, it is possible to produce on average 44.8% deeper structures with up to 60% higher homogeneity at the same throughput. Moreover, the presented approach allows the production of microstructures with comparable height and homogeneity compared to the Gaussian intensity distribution with increased throughput of 53%.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number591
Number of pages13
JournalMaterials
Volume15
Issue number2
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2022
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

PubMed 35057308
Scopus 85122968898
ORCID /0000-0003-4333-4636/work/196675426

Keywords

Keywords

  • Direct laser interference patterning, Filling-factor, Fundamental beam mode shaper, Homogeneity, Throughput, Top-hat beam profile