Ablation of piezoelectric polyvinylidene fluoride with a 193 nm excimer laser

Abstract

The unique flexible and piezoelectric properties of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) films would allow for new applications for integrated bioelectronic devices. The use of these films has been precluded by the difficulty in machining them into small, discrete features without damaging the properties of the material. The etching of piezoelectric PVDF by means of a 193 nm excimer laser is explored and characterized. Etch rates are shown for common laser fluence values, along with images of the quality of the cuts to provide the reader with an understanding of the compromise between etch rate and edge roughness. The authors describe a novel method for the etching of piezoelectric, β-phase PVDF. While PVDF is flexible, acoustically matched to biological tissue, and has a wide resonance bandwidth, it is often overlooked as a piezoelectric material for micro-electrical-mechanical-system devices because of the difficulty in fabrication. In this paper, the authors characterize the etch rate and quality while using a 193 nm argon fluoride excimer laser for patterning.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Mar 11, 2020
Source ID
10.1116/1.5142494

Entities

People

  • Chen Shi
  • Jeffrey Elloian
  • Jeffrey Sherman
  • Kenneth Shepard
  • Tiago Costa

Organizations

  • Columbia University
  • Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  • Foundation for the National Institutes of Health

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Materials science

Readers

  • Materials Science and Engineering.
  • Nanofabrication and Microfabrication.
  • Pulsed Power and Plasma Physics.

Technology Areas

  • Biotechnology
  • Directed Energy