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Improving edge quality and optical transmittance of Ag films on glass substrates by selective nanosecond pulsed laser ablation using various scanning methods

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Abstract

Selective laser ablation (SLA) of silver (Ag) films, which were deposited on glass substrates by radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering, was performed by using a 532 nm nanosecond (ns) pulsed laser. Two kinds of simple and mask-free SLA strategies featured by two new scanning paths (i.e. frame-typed serial scanning, FTSS, and frame-line combined scanning, FLCS) were proposed to improve the edge quality and optical transmittances of the SLA patterns. The effects of laser scanning speed (v), hatch distance (HD) and scanning path on edge quality of the laser-ablated grooves and SLA patterns were systematically studied. The results indicated that compared with the conventional line-typed cyclic scanning (LTCS) path, which resulted in unsmooth edge with semicircle-shaped boundaries and some Ag residues, the proposed scanning paths of FTSS and FLCS produced clean and smooth edges without obvious heat-affected zone and Ag residues under the condition of using a v value of 15 mm/s and an HD value of 90 μm. As a result, the as-obtained SLA patterns exhibited relatively high optical transmittances. The simple methods of adopting the FTSS or FLCS path for improving the edge quality during SLA and thus the optical transmittance of SLA patterns may have great potential application in various fields.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51805220 and 61405078), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China (Grant No. BK20140567) and the Jiangsu University Study-abroad Fund (Reference No. UJS-2017-013). The authors would like to thank the support of the Young Backbone Teacher Cultivating Project of Jiangsu University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, People’s Republic of China

    Baojia Li & Huang Li

  2. Institute of Micro-Nano Optoelectronic and Terahertz Technology, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, People’s Republic of China

    Lijing Huang

  3. School of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, People’s Republic of China

    Lijing Huang, Yilun Wang, Shuangshuang Li & Naifei Ren

  4. Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Center for Photon Manufacturing Science and Technology, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, People’s Republic of China

    Baojia Li, Huang Li, Lijing Huang, Yilun Wang, Shuangshuang Li & Naifei Ren

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  1. Baojia Li
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Li, B., Li, H., Huang, L. et al. Improving edge quality and optical transmittance of Ag films on glass substrates by selective nanosecond pulsed laser ablation using various scanning methods. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 30, 13729–13739 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-019-01755-6

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