Browsing by Subject "Femtosecond laser"

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Open Access
Development of femtosecond infrared fiber laser for multiphoton silicon micromachining
(2016-09) Rezaei, Hossein Salmani
Femtosecond laser is widely used in material processing. Application of ultrashort lasers makes it possible to process with higher precision compared to picosecond and nanosecond lasers. Moreover, a major challenge in picosecond and nanosecond laser processing is providing enough power for ablation. In the femtosecond regime, the peak power required for ablation can be achieved at lower pulse energies compared to picosecond and nanosecond pulses. Additionally, high peak intensity of femtosecond laser allows 3D material processing through multiphoton absorption by focusing the laser beam inside the bulk of material, for which the linear absorption is low (The bandgap of the material is wider than the photon energy). The same approach can be used for multiphoton surface processing, which would increase the processing precision. Such lasers could be useful for both surface and subsurface processing depending on where we focus the beam. For the past 50 years, silicon has been one of the most widely used materials in electronics technology including micro- and nanoelectronics, solar cell technology, telecommunications, etc. To the best of our knowledge, there is no existing technology up to now, which allows both surface and subsurface processing of silicon with the same laser. Er-doped fiber laser is operating at 1.55 µm wavelength, where the photon energy of the laser is less than the silicon bandgap energy. We designed and built an Er-doped all-fiber-integrated pulsed laser for multiphoton surface processing of silicon. The pulse duration of the compressed pulse is 390 fs. The laser system is capable of supplying up to 1.3 W output power at 905 kHz repetition rate, namely 1.5 µJ energy per pulse. The output beam is nearly diffraction limited with high beam quality. The laser beam is applied to process the silicon surface at different pulse energies. The depth of the trenches generated by the laser beam at various power levels is measured to investigate how the ablation depth varies with power. Subsurface silicon processing with the same laser will be investigated in our future work.
Open Access
Femtosecond laser assisted synthesis of silicate-1 zeolite
(2022-01) Hagverdiyev, Mehdi
Zeolites are microporous (pore sizes < 2 nm) inorganic aluminosilicate materials with well-defined molecular pores and high surface areas used widely for various chemical processes, primarily as catalysts, sorbents, and ion exchangers. Aside from 40 types of natural zeolite, 253 different synthetic zeolitic framework types are synthesized and recognized by the International Zeolite Association (IZA). Zeolite synthesis requires moderate temperatures between 50°C - 270°C and high pressures (up to 120 bar). A fundamental challenge in zeolite synthesis is to elucidate and control the nucleation and growth of the zeolite crystals. The main reason for this is the fast kinetics of zeolite synthesis and rapid conformational transitions between quasi-equilibrium phases. Zeolite synthesis is a complex process because more than 40 different types of silica polymerization and depolymerization reactions occur simultaneously in a reaction mixture (i.e., precursor suspension). Reaction time scales of the silica polymerization are within the range of picoseconds and femtoseconds. Using the traditional hydrothermal synthesis method, which is occurring near thermal equilibrium, it is impossible to control the system at the time scale of these simultaneous polymerization reactions due to the slow energy deposition, which can be from 24 hours to several days. Other types of zeolite synthesis methods such as microwave synthesis are capable of depositing high energies in short time scales. However, the synthesis method is lacking the control of the excess heating of the full volume of the precursor suspension. During microwave heating, several hot spots form inside the precursor suspension, causing the boiling of the liquid. Growth by inhomogeneous heating leads to the formation of fused (i.e., interconnect) crystals instead of the discrete ones that dominate the end product in microwave-assisted synthesis method of zeolites. Here, we introduce a novel femtosecond laser-assisted synthesis method for the synthesis of Silicalite-1 zeolites. Femtosecond laser pulses ensure the delivery of a precise amount of energy per area within a given time interval, and therefore the spatiotemporal control over the energy delivered to the precursor suspension could be done on the time scale of the polymerization reactions of the zeolite synthesis. Thanks to the femtosecond laser pulses, the appropriate environment for zeolite synthesis, such as local high temperature and local high pressure (shock waves), has been created. In the laser-assisted synthesis method, the time required for zeolite synthesis decreased drastically compared to the hydrothermal method, overall control and product quality increased compared to the microwave synthesis method of zeolites. Unlike other rapid synthesis methods such as microwave synthesis, the uncontrollable temperature rise over the full volume of precursor suspension was not observed, resulting in 'discrete' crystals in the final product. Energy intake of the transparent precursor suspension was achieved through multiphoton absorption of the femtosecond laser pulses inducing steep spatiotemporal thermal gradients. Since surface tension of fluid is a function of temperature, surface tension gradients form as well, causing Marangoni flow. The ‘stirring effect’ of these flows leads to the distribution of the formed clusters evenly to the system, which is not attained by static hydrothermal synthesis of zeolites. It is proposed that vigorous flow induced in the laser-assisted synthesis assembles nuclei/polymerized clusters much faster than the other synthesis methods, which may be the reason for the drastically reduced reaction times compared to hydrothermal synthesis (i.e., 30 - 48h for hydrothermal vs. 3h - 5h for laser-assisted syntheses). Growth kinetics of the Silicalite-1 zeolite was examined in detail. In addition, templatefree nanosized microporous Zeolite Y, and mesoporogen-free hierarchical ZSM-5 zeolites with micro and meso-porosity were synthesized with reduced reaction times through laser-assisted synthesis method (i.e., 24 - 45h for hydrothermal vs. 1 - 5h for laser-assisted syntheses), which is important in terms of green synthesis approaches drawing attention in recent years.
Open Access
Femtosecond laser fabrication of fiber based optofluidic platform for flow cytometry applications
(SPIE, 2017) Serhatlioglu, Murat; Elbuken, Çağlar; Ortac, Bülend; Solmaz, Mehmet E.
Miniaturized optofluidic platforms play an important role in bio-analysis, detection and diagnostic applications. The advantages of such miniaturized devices are extremely low sample requirement, low cost development and rapid analysis capabilities. Fused silica is advantageous for optofluidic systems due to properties such as being chemically inert, mechanically stable, and optically transparent to a wide spectrum of light. As a three dimensional manufacturing method, femtosecond laser scanning followed by chemical etching shows great potential to fabricate glass based optofluidic chips. In this study, we demonstrate fabrication of all-fiber based, optofluidic flow cytometer in fused silica glass by femtosecond laser machining. 3D particle focusing was achieved through a straightforward planar chip design with two separately fabricated fused silica glass slides thermally bonded together. Bioparticles in a fluid stream encounter with optical interrogation region specifically designed to allocate 405nm single mode fiber laser source and two multi-mode collection fibers for forward scattering (FSC) and side scattering (SSC) signals detection. Detected signal data collected with oscilloscope and post processed with MATLAB script file. We were able to count number of events over 4000events/sec, and achieve size distribution for 5.95μm monodisperse polystyrene beads using FSC and SSC signals. Our platform shows promise for optical and fluidic miniaturization of flow cytometry systems. © 2017 SPIE.
Open Access
A laser-assisted cellular electrophysiology measurement system
(IEEE, 2021-01-05) Seymen, Ali Aytac; Soran Erdem, Zeliha; Özgür, E.; Ortaç, Bülend
Patch-clamp technique is the gold standard for cellular electrophysiological measurements, which is capable of measuring single ion transport events across the cell membrane. However, the measurement possesses significant complexities, and it requires a high level of expertise, while its experimental throughput is nevertheless considerably low. Here, we suggest and experimentally demonstrate a laser-assisted method for performing cellular electrophysiological measurements. Femtosecond laser pulses, coupled to an optical microscope, are used to form a sub-micrometer hole on a thin polymer membrane separating two electrodes, where a nearby cell is subsequently placed onto the hole by negative pressure. Afterwards, the cell is punctured using subsequent laser exposure, revealing the cell membrane over the hole for electrophysiological recording. This system could be used to increase the output amount of the electrophysiological measurements substantially.