Ultrafast, Non-Equilibrium and Transient Heating and Sintering of Nanocrystals for Nanoscale Metal Printing.

The carrier excitation, relaxation, energy transport, and conversion processes during light-nanocrystal (NC) interactions have been intensively investigated for applications in optoelectronics, photocatalysis, and photovoltaics. However, there are limited studies on the non-equilibrium heating under relatively high laser excitation that leads to NCs sintering. Here, the authors use femtosecond laser two-pulse correlation and in-situ optical transmission probing to investigate the non-equilibrium heating of NCs and transient sintering dynamics. First, a two-pulse correlation study reveals that the sintering rate strongly increases when the two heating laser pulses are temporally separated by <10 ps. Second, the sintering rate is found to increase nonlinearly with laser fluence when heating with ≈700 fs laser pulses. By three-temperature modeling, the NC sintering mechanism mediated by electron induced ligand transformation is suggested. The ultrafast and non-equilibrium process facilitates sintering in dry (spin-coated) and wet (solvent suspended) environments. The nonlinear dependence of sintering rate on laser fluence is exploited to print sub-diffraction-limited features in NC suspension. The smallest feature printed is ≈200 nm, which is ≈» of the laser wavelength. These findings provide a new perspective toward nanomanufacturing development based on probing and engineering ultrafast transport phenomena in functional NCs.

Submicron Metal 3D Printing by Ultrafast Laser Heating and Induced Ligand Transformation of Nanocrystals.

Currently, light-based three-dimensional (3D) printing with submicron features is mainly developed based on photosensitive polymers or inorganic-polymer composite materials. To eliminate polymer/organic additives, a strategy for direct 3D assembly and printing of metallic nanocrystals without additives is presented. Ultrafast laser with intensity in the range of 1 × 1010 to 1 × 1012 W/cm2 is used to nonequilibrium heat nanocrystals and induce ligand transformation, which triggers the spontaneous fusion and localized assembly of nanocrystals. The process is due to the operation of hot electrons as confirmed by a strong dependence of the printing rate on laser pulse duration varied in the range of electron-phonon relaxation time. Using the developed laser-induced ligand transformation (LILT) process, direct printing of 3D metallic structures at micro and submicron scales is demonstrated. Facile integration with other microscale additive manufacturing for printing 3D devices containing multiscale features is also demonstrated.

Effect of Al Content in Magnesium Alloy on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Laser-Welded Mg/Ti Dissimilar Joints.

Laser penetration welding of magnesium alloys and pure titanium TA2 with unequal thickness was performed. Mg base metal with different Al content (AZ31B, AZ61A, AZ91D) was used to investigate the influence of Al element in microstructure and mechanical properties of Mg/Ti dissimilar joints. The results revealed that the change of Mg base metal did not influence the weld appearance of the joints. Three kinds of joint all presented the best mechanical property when the laser power was 3500 W. With the increase content of Al elements in Mg base metal, a reaction layer was observed which was identified as Ti3Al. The highest enrichment of Al element was obtained and its fraction reached 19.31 at% at the AZ91/TA2 interface. The chemical potential gradient of Al from AZ91 to Ti alloy was higher than that from the other two base metals based on thermodynamic calculation. The maximum fracture load reached 3597 N when AZ61 was employed as the base metal and the fracture position was the Ti base metal. AZ31/TA2 joints failed at the weld seam without necking due to the rapid propagation of cracks at the Mg/Ti interface. The AZ91/TA2 joint failed inside the Mg fusion zone with necking at the middle area of the weld, which resulted from the precipitation of brittle phases such as Mg-Al, Ti-Al phases in the fusion zone of Mg alloys.

Aluminum Parts Fabricated by Laser-Foil-Printing Additive Manufacturing: Processing, Microstructure, and Mechanical Properties.

Fabrication of dense aluminum (Al-1100) parts (>99.3% of relative density) by our recently developed laser-foil-printing (LFP) additive manufacturing method was investigated as described in this paper. This was achieved by using a laser energy density of 7.0 MW/cm2 to stabilize the melt pool formation and create sufficient penetration depth with 300 µm thickness foil. The highest yield strength (YS) and ultimate tensile strength (UTS) in the LFP-fabricated samples reached 111 ± 8 MPa and 128 ± 3 MPa, respectively, along the laser scanning direction. These samples exhibited greater tensile strength but less ductility compared to annealed Al-1100 samples. Fractographic analysis showed elongated gas pores in the tensile test samples. Strong crystallographic texturing along the solidification direction and dense subgrain boundaries in the LFP-fabricated samples were observed by using the electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) technique.

Feasibility Study of Single-Crystal Si Island Manufacturing by Microscale Printing of Nanoparticles and Laser Crystallization.

Nonvacuum printing of single crystals would be ideal for high-performance functional device (such as electronics) fabrication yet challenging for most materials, especially for inorganic semiconductors. Currently, the printed films are dominant in amorphous, polycrystalline, or nanoparticle films. In this article, manufacturing of single-crystal silicon micro/nano-islands is attempted. Different from traditional vapor deposition for silicon thin-film preparation, silicon nanoparticle ink was aerosol-printed followed by confined laser melting and crystallization, allowing potential fabrication of single-crystal silicon micro/nano-islands. It is also shown that as-fabricated Si islands can be transfer-printed onto polymer substrates for potential application of flexible electronics. The additive nature of this technique suggests a scalable and economical approach for high-crystallinity semiconductor printing.