High speed, high strength microwelding of Si/glass using ps-laser pulses

Metal Nanoparticles Assisted Ultrafast Laser Plasmonic Microwelding of Oxide-Semiconductor Interconnects

Integration of wafer-scale oxide and semiconductor materials meets the difficulties of residual stress and materials incompatibility. In this work, Ag NPs thin film is contributed as an energy confinement layer between oxide (Sapphire) and semiconductor (Si) wafers to localize the materials interaction during ultrafast laser irradiation. Due to the plasmonic effects generated within constructed dielectric-metal-dielectric structures (i.e., Sapphire-Ag-Si), thermal diffusion and chemical reaction between Ag and its neighboring materials facilitate the microwelding of Sapphire and Si wafers. Ag NPs can be totally sintered within the junction area to bridge oxide and semiconductor, while Al─O─Ag bond and Ag─Si bond are formed at Ag-Sapphire and Ag─Si interfaces, respectively. As-received heterogeneous joint exhibits a high shear strength up to 5.4 MPa, with the fracture occurring inside Si wafer. Meanwhile, insertion of metal nanolayer can greatly relieve the residual stress-induced microcracking inside the brittle materials. Such wafer-scale Sapphire and Si interconnects thus show robust strength and excellent impermeability even after thermal shocking (-40 °C to 120 °C) for 200 cycles. This metal NPs layer-assisted plasmonic microwelding technology can extend to broad materials integration, which is promising for high-performance microdevices development in MEMS, MOEMS, or microfluidics.

Bonding of PMMA to silicon by femtosecond laser pulses

Many devices and objects, from microelectronics to microfluidics, consist of parts made from dissimilar materials, such as different polymers, metals or semiconductors. Techniques for joining such hybrid micro-devices, generally, are based on gluing or thermal processes, which all present some drawbacks. For example, these methods are unable to control the size and shape of the bonded area, and present risks of deterioration and contamination of the substrates. Ultrashort laser bonding is a non-contact and flexible technique to precisely join similar and dissimilar materials, used both for joining polymers, and polymers to metallic substrates, but not yet for joining polymers to silicon. We report on direct transmission femtosecond laser bonding of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and silicon. The laser process was performed by focusing ultrashort laser pulses at high repetition rate at the interface between the two materials through the PMMA upper layer. The PMMA-Si bond strength was evaluated as a function of different laser processing parameters. A simple, analytical, model was set up and used to determine the temperature of the PMMA during the bonding process. As a proof of concept, the femtosecond-laser bonding of a simple hybrid PMMA-Si microfluidic device has been successfully demonstrated through dynamic leakage tests.

Femtosecond laser Bessel beam welding of transparent to non-transparent materials with large focal-position tolerant zone

It is known that ultrashort laser welding of materials requires an accurate laser beam focusing and positioning onto the samples interface. This puts forward severe challenges for controlling the focus position particularly considering that the tightly focused Gaussian beam has a short, micron-sized Rayleigh range. Here we propose a large-focal-depth welding method to bond materials by using non-diffractive femtosecond laser Bessel beams. A zero-order Bessel beam is produced by an axicon and directly imaged on the interface between silicon and borosilicate glass to write welding lines, ensuring a non-diffractive length in the 500 μm range and micron-sized FWHM diameter. The focal-position tolerant zone for effective welding increases thus many-fold compared to traditional Gaussian beam welding. The shear joining strength of the sample welded by this method could be as high as 16.5 MPa. The Raman spectrum and element distribution analyses within the cross section of welding line reveal that substance mixing has occurred during laser irradiation, which is considered as the main reason for femtosecond laser induced bonding.

Towards industrial ultrafast laser microwelding: SiO2 and BK7 to aluminum alloy

We report systematic analysis and comparison of ps-laser microwelding of industry relevant Al6082 parts to SiO₂ and BK7. Parameter mapping of pulse energy and focal depth on the weld strength is presented. The welding process was found to be strongly dependent on the focal plane but has a large tolerance to variation in pulse energy. Accelerated lifetime tests by thermal cycling from -50° to +90°C are presented. Welds in Al6082-BK7 parts survive over the full temperature range where the ratio of thermal expansion coefficients is 3.4:1. Welds in Al6082-SiO₂ parts (ratio 47.1:1) survive only a limited temperature range.