Laser-induced forward transfer on compliant receivers

Summary form only given. Laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT) is a technique for the transfer of materials in solid or liquid phase. During LIFT a thin film (donor) previously coated onto a transparent carrier substrate is transferred by the explosive expansion of a small part of the donor volume after the absorption of a laser pulse at the interface of donor and carrier, accelerating a part of the thin film (flyer) towards a receiving substrate (receiver). When transferring a solid flyer via LIFT, it is possible to preserve its phase and physical properties, however such an intact transfer also depends strongly on the mechanical properties of the flyer and the receiver, and the flyer´s velocity during transfer. For inelastic materials and high flyer velocities the resulting stresses on impact can exceed the flyer´s mechanical strength and thus cause its undesirable shattering. To mitigate this effect, we have introduced a compliant polymer film capping the receiver and have studied experimentally the effect of such a film on the morphology and adhesion of a LIFTed deposit. Furthermore we modelled via finite element software (Comsol Multiphysics^®) the impact of a flyer onto such a receiver for different material parameters and transfer conditions, and compared it to the case of LIFT onto a bare glass receiver.