Description

Nano-electrospray laser deposition is an efficient method to utilize practically any nanomaterials for additively creating novel microstructures as well as nanostructures on various substrates. In this process, colloidal nanosuspensions of the nanoparticles are dispensed with a capillary tube charged by high voltage, forming 100  diameter microdroplets. The strong electric field creates a microdripping electrospray mode, ejecting microdroplets onto a substrate. The nanoparticles in the suspension are then sintered with a Nd:YAG laser of Bessel irradiance distribution and 1064  wavelength. Droplets of different nanoparticle suspensions have different optical properties, i.e., reflectance, absorption coefficient and refractive index, and therefore, each droplet can act as a lens to refocus the laser beam and modify the irradiance distribution of the laser. In this work, a transient three-dimensional heat conduction model has been developed to analyze the temperature distribution in a Si substrate heated by the modified laser beam.  The refocusing effect of the droplets is found to cause enhanced heating of certain spots on the substrate and this effect can be beneficial to sinter the nanoparticles over a very small region for creating nanostructures on the substrate.   The results of the model show that lower reflectance, lower absorption coefficient and higher refractive index of the droplets generate higher temperatures in the substrate.  Above certain temperatures of the substrate surface, the droplets bounce upward from the substrate due to a thermal phenomenon known as the Leidenfrost effect.  The model can also be used to predict the bouncing of droplets by comparing the surface temperature to the Leidenfrost temperature of the substrate.

Contributing Authors

  • Tianyi Li
    University of Central Florida
  • Ranganathan Kumar
    University of Central Florida
  • Aravinda Kar
    University of Central Florida
Tianyi Li
University of Central Florida
Track: Laser Materials Microprocessing
Session: Micro Session III
Day of Week: Monday
Date/Time:
Location:

Keywords

  • Microdroplet Lens