Femtosecond laser-induced forward transfer for the deposition of nanoscale transparent and solid-phase materials

The Laser-Induced Forward Transfer (LIFT) technique [1] exists as a simple method for the direct-writing of a wide range of materials with sub-micron to 100s of microns feature sizes. A thin film of the material to be deposited (the donor) is coated onto one face of a transparent carrier substrate and transferred to another substrate (the receiver) placed some microns away by irradiating the carrier-donor interface through the carrier with a CW or pulsed laser. The process is inherently thermal in nature, with melting and ablation of the donor required to provide the necessary thrust for transferring material. Hence, the technique is not readily applied to the deposition of thermo-sensitive materials