Mechanisms of carbon dioxide laser stereolithography in epoxy-based materials

We present in this article the use of infrared laser radiation to achieve localized curing in thermosensitive epoxy resin compounds. In stereolithography, the objective is to cure a localized region in a material by precisely confining the laser energy to the area that is to be cured. Industry already uses ultraviolet laser radiation at 352 nm to fabricate three-dimensional structures. Via infrared laser curing, we demonstrate the viability of a completely thermal localized curing process. In our experiment, we have focused the beam from a carbon dioxide (CO2) laser onto a sample composed of epoxy resin, diethylene triamine, and silica powder. Such resins typically cure, or solidify, when heated to moderately high temperatures, and our results show that we can confine the heating of the material, and, therefore, its curing in all three dimensions. We present a physical and a chemical model to describe the process and measure the curing rate as a function of temperature. In order to model the flow of heat in our sample as a result of infrared laser irradiation, we solved the time-dependent heat equation in cylindrical coordinates using the Crank-Nicholson finite-difference method. The results allow us to predict the curing behavior of the sample as a function of laser irradiation conditions, and we find good agreement with our preliminary experimental observations. (C) 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.62349150