Laser-guided manipulation of non-atomic particles

ABSTRACT

A method and device for using laser light to trap non-atomic particles optically within a hollow region of a hollow core optical fiber.

INFORMATION

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In the following detailed description of the invention references are made to the accompanying drawings, which for a part thereof, and in which specific preferred embodiments for practicing the invention are shown by way of illustration. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention, and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that logical, mechanical, chemical and electrical changes may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is to be defined only by the appended claims.

Optical forces arise from the reflection and refraction of light at a particle/environment interface. When the size of a particle is large compared to the wave length of the incident light, the forces acting on the particle can be described in a geometrical ray approximation. Referring to FIG. 1, s single optical laser ray from a laser beam is shown striking a sphere having a refractive index ns larger than a refractive index film of the surrounding medium. In this example, sphere is a dielectric sphere made of an optically transparent material, so it is optically transparent to ray . Incident on an interface , ray undergoes partial reflection and refraction at that interface. A portion of incident ray reflected at interface is known as radiation pressure. The first time a portion of ray is reflected when ray enters sphere at an entrance point , creating radiation pressure force F2 perpendicular to the surface of sphere and directed toward the center of the sphere. The second time a portion of ray is reflected is when the ray exits sphere at an exit point , creating radiation pressure force F4, also perpendicular to the surface of sphere , but directed outwardly. Portions of ray which are refracted at the surface of sphere when the ray enters and exits the sphere at points and creates forces F1 and F3, respectively. Force F1 is perpendicular to the direction of the refracted ray propagating inside sphere . Similarly, force F3 is perpendicular to the direction of the once again refracted ray propagating outside sphere after exiting the sphere. The sum of the forces F1-F4, in addition to forces arising from multiple reflections inside the sphere, gives the total force acting on sphere from the ray .

If total forces from all possible rays incident of sphere are calculated and added up, the summation will give the two resulting net forces. The first net force is a confinement force (also known as a gradient force), acting in the radial direction toward the increase of the laser intensity. The second net force (also known as a radiation pressure force) acts along the axis z of the laser beam and results in propelling sphere along the direction of laser propagation. Consequently, optical forces exerted by a laser beam on sphere simultaneously pull the sphere toward the center of the laser beam and accelerate the sphere along the direction of propagation of the beam. It is important to note that the mechanism of guiding non-atomic particles through optical fibers utilized in the present invention is different from that of guiding atoms. Most notably, optical forces causing confinement and propulsion of a non-atomic particle in a fiber are based on non-resonant scattering of light, as described with regard to FIG. . To the contrary, atomic laser guidance is based on resonant interactions between the laser field and an atom.

In order to obtain such magnitude of the radiation pressure and gradient forces, high intensity laser fields are required, which is normally achieved in tightly focused laser beams. As a result, optical forces sufficient to trap and propel particles occur only near the laser beam waste in a hollow core of an optical fiber. In the fiber, a high intensity region extends along the length of the fiber, providing for the propulsion as well as confinement of the particles inside the fiber. When a laser beam propagates along the fiber, the beam doesn't diverge, but extends along the length of the fiber, making it possible to carry the particle along the same fiber.

The radial profile of the lowest order optical mode couple to a hollow fiber is well represented by a zeroth order Bessel function Jo(Xρ), where X=2.4/ρo, and ρo is the radius of a hollow core region of the fiber, as shown in FIG. . The lowest loss grazing-incidence mode has radial ρ and axial z intensity dependence given by:

(ρ)=oo(ρ)]2 exp(−o),  (1)

where Io is the intensity of the laser filed at ρ=0.

zo is a decay length, given by

o=6.8(ρo3/λ2)([ν2−1]−1/2/[ν2+1]),  (2)

where ν is the ratio a fiber wall refractive index nf to the hollow core refractive index nm of the medium in the hollow core region, λ is the laser wave length in the hollow region, z is the distance from the beginning of the fiber. As follows from (1), the intensity of the laser field has a maximum in the center of the fiber where ρ=0 and slowly decreases along the length of the fiber as exp(−z/zo). Decay length zo sets the limit on the distance along which particles can be guided. In general, zo is calculated using equation (2) for a specific fiber geometry, laser wave length, and refractive indices of the fiber core and walls. An estimate of (2) provides a practical limit to a guidance distance of up to 100 m.

An example of calculation of optical forces exerted on dielectric particles having a radius larger than the wavelength of a laser is shown in FIG. 3, which depicts radial dependence of the axial scattering and radial gradient forces on a 7 μm polystyrene sphere (ns=1.59) near the entrance of a water-filled fiber using the geometric ray formalism and equation (1) for the intensity profile calculations. The experimental conditions were the following: a 3.6 mm diameter, 240 mW laser beam was coupled with 90% efficiency into a 20 μm fiber. As seen in FIG. 3, a gradient force increases nearly linearly with small displacements from the fiber center indicating a restoring force drawing the particle back to the high intensity central region of the fiber. An axial force in FIG. 3 is nearly constant for small displacements from the center.

As follows from the theoretical basis and experimental results described above, since an intense laser beam inside the hollow core fiber has a proper profile and, therefore, the trapped particle is damped by the fluid inside the fiber, the particle is confined inside the laser beam and can be transported with the beam without bouncing off the inside walls of the fiber. The size of the particles capable of being guided that way can vary from about 50 nm to about 10 μm. The higher the refractive index of a particle, the larger the optical forces exerted on the particle, and, consequently, the easier it is to manipulate and transport such a particle. Besides water droplets and polystyrene spheres, the substances guided through the fibers were salt, sugar, KI, CdTe, Si and Ge crystals, Au and Ag particles with sizes ranging from about 10 nm to about 10 μm using a 0.5 W laser and a 117 μm inner-diameter air-filled fiber. Listed in Table 1 in FIG. 10 are the materials manipulated by laser guidance on a variety of substrates. Since metal particles, such as Au and Ag, for example, usually reflect light well and absorb very little light, larger metal particles can be transported along the hollow core fibers faster. Moreover, since the use of hollow core fibers allows manipulation of a wide variety of particles and virtually opens up the non-contact, non-mechanical way of transporting numerous materials, living cells can be manipulated and guided through the fibers in liquid environments. Examples of the results of fiber guiding for several types of dielectric particles are shown in FIGS. ()-(). Each image of a short section of fiber in FIG. 7 is captured on a CCD camera. FIGS. ()-() show snapshots of polystyrene spheres guided in a water filled fiber. FIG. () shows an example of a particle guided in an air filled fiber. The track of scattered light in FIG. () indicates a trajectory of a 1 μm water droplet in a 20 μm diameter fiber.

One of the many applications of particle laser guidance is direct-write patterning of surfaces, which utilizes optical forces to transport particles through hollow core optical fibers and deposit the transported particles on surfaces. In the laser guidance and surface patterning apparatus depicted in FIG. 4, laser light is focused into the hollow region of a hollow core fiber and guided in a low order grazing incidence mode. Aerosol particles created by a nebulizer and situated near the fiber entrance are funneled into the hollow region by optical gradient and scattering forces, and then guided to a substrate . For best results, substrate is usually placed between 10 μm and 300 μm from the end of the fiber, because at larger distances the optical forces decrease rapidly and can't continue to confine the particles.

The material used in surface patterning is usually either dissolved or suspended in a liquid . The material can be a crystalline substance, such as, for example, barium titanate (a common capacitor material for electronic applications), or a dissolved precursor material, such as silver nitrate, which can be decomposed to the final product by heating inside the laser beam during transportation. It is contemplated that many other materials are capable of being transported to a surface and deposited on the surface. When an aerosol mist is generated by the nebulizer , the mist is directed into the laser beam near an entrance of the hollow fiber . Laser scattering and gradient forces at the entrance draw the aerosol particles toward the center of the laser beam and propel them into the fiber . As the aerosol particles travel through the fiber , excess solvent evaporates; leaving behind solid crystal particles. In case of precursor particles, heating inside the laser beam can decompose the particle to the final material to be deposited, such as, for example, decomposing silver nitrate to silver to be put on the substrate. Such a drawing technique can be of general application and used to draw a wide variety of materials into a laser beam. Precursors for virtually any material used in electronics are available and known.

Coupling the laser beam into the fiber is accomplished with the help of a lens that matches the fiber mode radius to the Gaussian beam waste. In one of the embodiments of the apparatus , for a fiber having an inner diameter of 20 μm, a 0.05 numerical aperture (NA) lens gives a coupling efficiency better than 90% into the lowest order mode. It is possible to use lenses with a larger NA, which lenses excite rapidly decaying high-order nodes. Considerable care must be given to angular alignment of the incident laser light to, the fiber—a misalignment of about 1 degree excites high-order modes and results in the guided particles hitting the inside wall of the fiber

Referring now to FIG. 5 as an illustrative example, patterning experimental results are shown for NaCl crystallites guided by a diode laser onto a glass cover slip by the apparatus described above and depicted in FIG. . In that example, a 250 W/λ=800 nm laser beam was coupled into an 8 mm long fiber having a 20 μm diameter of the inner hollow core. (In other successful direct writing experiments a laser beam of 400 mW having the wavelength of 800 nm was used). NaCl crystals were dissolved in distilled water to form a saturated solution. The droplets of the solution were launched into the laser beam by the nebulizer. Since optical forces are a strong function of particle size, scaling approximately as a square particle size, the largest droplets are preferentially captured and guided into the fiber. As the droplets begin to propagate along the fiber, the water in the droplets evaporates after about 2 mm of travel into the fiber, so the solid NaCl crystals are formed and then guided along the rest of the fiber onto the glass cover slip.

As seen in FIG. 5, the first two patterns ( and , respectively) correspond to a single NaCl crystallite guided and delivered to the glass surface (as substrate In FIG. ). The other three patterns (, , and in FIG. 5) correspond to structural features formed by multiple NaCl crystallites. The spot diameter of each pattern is about 5 μm, which is significantly smaller that the 20 μm diameter of the inner hollow core of the guiding fiber. This observation confirms the fact that the radial optical forces confine the crystallites to the center of the hollow core. It was estimated that the size of each crystallite is about 1 μm for a saturated NaCl solution. The size of a crystallite on a substrate can be reduced by reducing the concentration of NaCl in the initial solution.

Another experimental example of direct writing presents patterns of BaTiO3, In2O3, Ag, Al(NO3)3 and Al2O3 crystal deposition, which are shown in FIGS. (), (), (), () and (), respectively. The lines of crystals in FIGS. ()-() were drawn at various micrometer translation rates during the deposition. The BaTiO3 crystals were guided by a 1W/532 nm laser and transported through a 14 μm diameter, 4 mm long fiber.

By directing particles along the fiber onto the substrate (shown in FIG. ), micron-size features of desirable shape can be fabricated. As noted above, the direct deposition of nanometer-size particles, called nano-fabrication, allows a user to build features of less than 100 nm on a substrate, which is currently the smallest feature achievable in photo lithographic processes. Such features are built up by continued addition of particles, which can be fused together on substrate by various techniques, including in-flight melting of the particles, and subsequent coalescence of molten droplets on the substrate, simultaneous deposition of solid particles and liquid precursors, wherein the liquids serve to fill the gaps between solid particles, coalescence of liquid precursors on the substrate and subsequent decomposition by laser heating to form the final product on the substrate, sintering of the deposited material by laser, or chemical binding. The structural features can be composed of a wide variety of materials, such as metals, semiconductors, and insulators. Table 1 in FIG. 10 lists the types of materials, which were manipulated by hollow-core laser guidance, as well as substrates and linear dimensions.

Since the current invention makes it possible to create surface structural features less than a micron in size, thus implementing the invention in circuit board printing processes increases the density of electrical circuits. Circuitry can be written on substrates made of plastics, metals, ceramics and semiconductors with a wide range of materials described above deposited on such substrates with high throughput. An additional implementation of the laser guided direct writing is the direct write process on an arbitrary shaped substrate, allowing the circuitry to conform to the shape of the substrate. Such direct writing on micron-sized structural features can be used to write unique identification markers, as well as to prototype micro-mechanical devices in the rapidly growing micro-electro-mechanical systems industry. Moreover, since the direct writing technique can be used to write electrical circuits on a virtually unlimited variety of substrates, the products in which the technique can be used include wireless communication devices, “smart” credit cards, and embedded circuitry in biological implants.

Electrical circuit fabrication, which calls for fully dense, continuous, micron-size patterns, can be achieved by the direct-write laser guidance method of the present invention. For example, particles can melt during laser transportation, so the molten particles flowing together on to the substrate are deposited on the substrate as fully dense patterns. The high laser intensity near the fiber entrance (1012 W/m2) can melt nearly any material by laser light absorption. Strongly absorbing materials, such as metals and alloys, melt at a low illumination (100 mW) within the first 100 μm of the fiber entrance. To melt weakly absorbing materials, such as transparent glasses and ceramics, either a laser beam having a material absorption wavelength or a more intense laser are usually required. In the apparatus in FIG. 4, the length of fiber or the optical coupling mode can be adjusted, so that the entering particles ( in FIG. 4) melt at fiber entrance , but the laser intensity at a fiber exit is sufficiently low to minimize heating of substrate . Such low exiting intensity can be achieved by the appropriate choice of the length and diameter of the guiding fiber.

Another method of depositing materials onto a substrate is the use of precursors in depositions. A precursor is any material that can be decomposed thermally or chemically to yield a desired final product. In the laser material deposition method of the present invention, the desired product is a material to be deposited on the substrate. For example, silver nitrate is a salt that dissolves in water. Therefore, laser guiding the droplets of the silver nitrate inside an optical fiber heats the droplets confined in the laser beam, yielding the final material, silver, which is then deposited on the substrate. Alternatively, heating of the droplets can be accomplished by any other conventional means. Heating and decomposing indium nitrate is another example of using precursors in laser deposition. Guiding and heating indium nitrate in the laser beam inside an optical fiber decomposes is to a transparent semiconductor, indium oxide.

Yet another way of depositing a desired material onto a substrate is to use a liquid droplet to transport a smaller sold particle of the desired material by using laser guidance and deposition. During transportation, the liquid droplets evaporate, leaving smaller solid particles, which can be then deposited onto the substrate. In many cases it is easier to guide and deposit precursors rather than the final desired materials.

The same principle on which apparatus in FIG. 4 is based can be used to provide an apparatus and method for laser levitation of individual crystallites. If a particle is guided along vertically located fiber in FIG. 4, the force of gravity pulls the particle down while the axial optical force pulls the particle up the length of the fiber. Since the axial force becomes smaller with distance along the fiber, the two forces eventually balance each other and the particle remains levitated at an equilibrium height Since in such an equilibrium position the magnitude of the axial force propelling the particle upward is equal to the magnitude of the gravitational force pulling the particle down, the apparatus can serve as a device for measuring the axial force, since the magnitude of the gravitational force is not difficult to calculate.

The snapshots in FIGS. ()-() show the levitation of a 5 μm water droplet in a 5 mm curved section of an air-filled fiber. A 240-mW/800 nm laser beam is coupled with 90% efficiency into the lowest-loss mode. The 5 μm water droplets, estimated by optical microscopy, are funneled into the fiber by the laser light from a fog of droplets. The scattered light from the droplet in FIG. ()-() is easily seen by the naked eye as the droplet travels through the fiber.

Another embodiment of a laser levitation apparatus is shown in FIG. . In that embodiment, laser beams and are launched into opposite ends and of a fiber , respectively. The axial forces exerted on a particle from laser beams and inside a hollow core of fiber are opposite, canceling out at an equilibrium point inside the fiber. At the same point the force confining particle to the center of hollow core doubles in magnitude. By reducing the laser intensity, particle will be pulled down by the gravitational force toward the lower part of the hollow core . Since the gravitational force can be easily calculated, measurements of the particle downwardly displacements provide a measure of the radial confinement force. Laser traps of the kind depicted in FIG. 8 have been constructed and tested for trapping liquids, salts, glasses and metals for several hours while monitoring the particles' dynamic behavior and scattering. By mixing droplets in such traps, chemical reactions were observed during the mixing process. Such an apparatus can be used for containerless processing of chemical droplets by mixing droplets by coalescence or laser heating the droplets confined in the laser beam to drive chemical reactions inside them.

Another application of a two-beam laser trap is an apparatus for recording the emission spectrum of trapped particles, which apparatus is shown schematically in FIG. . The trap is formed by laser beams and directed into opposite ends and of a fiber . At some point inside fiber optical scattering from laser beams and will balance, and the laser field will both confine and heat the particles inside the fiber. The laser beams and are formed by a beam splitter , which splits a laser beam generated by a source . The trapped particles optical emission spectrum is then recorded by a low light spectrophotometer . Apparatus can be a useful tool in controlling fully dense direct writing and adhesion of particles to a substrate by determining and manipulating conditions for melting the particles. The conditions for melting can be determined by measuring the particle's temperature from the particle's radiative emission and by measuring temperature dependence on material, particle size, laser power and fiber dimensions. The particle's phase transition between solid and liquid can be determined from the changes in optical scattering patterns. The combined use of the emission spectrum and the scattering patterns of a particle will distinctly determine the melting temperature and conditions for controlling direct laser writing.

Although specific embodiments have been described and illustrated herein, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that any arrangement, which is calculated to achieve the same purpose may be substituted for the specific embodiments shown. Therefore, this application is intended to cover any adaptations or variations of the present invention. Therefore, it is manifestly intended that this invention only be limited by the following claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a schematic representation of optical forces exerted on a particle.

FIG. 2 is a front view of a hollow core optical fiber.

FIG. 3 is a graph illustrating the dependence of optical forces on a radial position.

FIG. 4 is a schematic representation of a laser guidance apparatus.

FIG. 5 is a microscopic picture of a NaCl patterning example.

FIGS. ()-() are microscopic pictures of crystal deposition for BaTiO3, In2O3, Ag, Al(NO3)3, and Al2O3, respectively.

FIGS. ()-() are snapshots showing levitation of a water droplet in a curved section of an air-filled fiber.

FIG. 8 is a schematic representation of a two-laser trapping apparatus.

FIG. 9 is a schematic representation of another embodiment of a two-laser trapping apparatus.

FIG. 10 is a table listing materials manipulated by laser guidance on a variety of substrates.

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/408,621, filed Sep. 30, 1999 and claims the benefit of the filing of U.S. Provisional patent application Ser. No. 60/102,418, entitled “Direct-Writing of Materials by Laser Guidance”, filed on Sep. 30, 1998, and the specification thereof is incorporated herein by reference.

CLAIMS

1. The method of depositing a material onto a substrate, the method comprising: providing a solution containing the material; transforming at least a portion of the solution into a plurality of non-atomic droplets of the material near a first opening of an optical conductor having a through channel; confining the droplets inside a laser beam while directing the beam toward the first opening; transporting the droplets inside the through channel from the first opening to a second opening of the optical conductor by causing the laser beam with the confined droplets to propagate between the first and the second openings in the through channel; and depositing the droplets of the material onto the substrate after the laser beam exits the second opening of the optical conductor.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the substrate is selected from the group consisting of metals, alloys, insulators, semiconductors, polymers, and biological material.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the material is selected from the group consisting of metals, alloys, dielectrics, semiconductors, liquids and biological material.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the droplet size is larger than about 10 nm.

5. A method for depositing a material onto a substrate, the method comprising: providing one or more particles comprising providing one or more liquid droplets; confining one or more particles inside a laser beam while directing the beam toward a first opening; transporting one or more particles inside the through channel from the first opening to a second opening of the optical fiber by causing the laser beam with the confined one or more particles to propagate between the first and the second opening to a second opening of the optical fiber by causing the laser beam with the confined one or more particles to propagate between the first and the second openings in the through channel; treating one or more particles while transporting them inside the through channel, thereby providing the material for deposition; and depositing the material onto the substrate after the laser beam exits the second opening of the optical fiber.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein treating one or more particles comprises chemical or thermal treatment.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein providing one or more liquid droplets comprises providing a solution by dissolving the material in a solvent; and transforming the solvent into one or more liquid droplets.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein one or more particles are larger than about 10 nm in size or 10−21 liters in volume.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein one or more particles comprises a liquid portion and a solid portion.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the solid portion is the material deposited onto the substrate.

11. A method of confining a particle inside a through channel of an optical fiber, the method comprising: directing a first laser beam into the channel through a first opening of the optical fiber, directing a second laser beam into the channel through a second opening of the optical fiber; and confining the particle inside the channel by causing the first and the second laser beams to propagate toward each other inside the channel.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the optical conductor is horizontal and wherein the first and the second openings are disposed opposite to each other.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising changing an intensity of both of the laser beam or changing an intensity of one of the laser beams to change a position of the confined particle inside the channel.

14. A method of confining a particle inside a hollow portion of a optical fiber, the method comprising: confining the particle inside a laser beam; directing the laser beam with the confined particle into the hollow portion through a first opening of the optical fiber; and transporting the particle inside the hollow portion by causing the laser beam to propagate inside the hollow portion until a velocity of the particle reduces to about zero.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the optical fiber is substantially vertical.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising causing the laser beam to exit the optical fiber through a second opening.

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