Micromachining of 1 mm thick dielectric and metallic substrates was conducted using femtosecond pulse generated filaments in water. Several hundred microjoule energy pulses were focused within a water layer covering the samples. Within this water layer, non-linear self-action mechanisms transform the beam, which enables higher quality and throughput micromachining results compared to focusing i...

A major technical hurdle in microfluidics is the difficulty in achieving high fidelity lithographic patterning on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Here, we report a simple yet highly precise and repeatable PDMS surface micromachining method using direct photolithography followed by reactive ion etching (RIE). Our method to achieve surface patterning of PDMS applied an O2 plasma treatment to PDMS to...

Lasers have proven to be among the most promising tools for micromachining because they can process features down to the size of the laser wavelength (smaller than 1 micrometer) and they provide a non-contact technology for machining. The demand for incorporating in-situ diagnostics technology into the micromachining environment is driven by the increasing need for producing micro-parts of high...

Femtosecond laser micromachining has emerged in recent years as a new technique for micro/nano structure fabrication because of its applicability to virtually all kinds of materials in an easy one-step process that is scalable. In the past, much research on femtosecond laser micromachining was carried out to understand the complex ablation mechanism, whereas recent works are mostly concerned wi...

This paper discusses the use of excimer lasers in the manufacture of microelectromechanical devices and systems. With emphasis on two application areas: laser micromachining of polymer masters for replication in metal by electroplating (Laser-LIGA), and laser-assisted manipulation of microparts for hybrid assembly. As a master fabrication method, laser micromachining offers advantages over conv...

We report on high precision high speed micromachining of Al2O3 and AlN using pulsed near infrared fiber laser. Ablation thresholds are determined to be 30 J/cm2 for alumina and 18 J/cm2 for aluminum nitride. The factors influencing the efficiency and quality of 3D micromachining, namely the surface roughness, the material removal rate and the ablation depth accuracy are determined as a function...

Surface micromachining is characterized by the fabrication of micromechanical structures from deposited thin films. Originally employed for integrated circuits, films composed of materials such as low-pressure chemical-vapor-deposition polycrystalline silicon, silicon nitride, and silicon dioxides can be sequentially deposited and selectively removed to build or “machine” three-dimensional stru...

Reactive ion etching (RIE) is the dominating technology for micromachining semiconductors with a high aspect ratio (HAR) [...]

Bulk silicon etching techniques, used to selectively remove silicon from substrates, have been broadly applied in the fabrication of micromachined sensors, actuators, and structures. Despite the more recent emergence of higher resolution, surfacemicromachining approaches, the majority of currently shipping silicon sensors are made using bulk etching. Particularly in light of newly introduced dr...

Industrial micromachining applications with ultrashort pulse lasers are often difficult to make practical due to the lack of robustness of the laser and the slow processing speed resulting from the low repetition rate. In the past, amplified, femtosecond lasers produced high pulse energies, but at a slow pulse repetition rate of around a kHz. The high repetition rate oscillators did not have en...