Selective laser ablation and patterning on Ag thin films with width and depth control

Silver (Ag) films were deposited on glass substrates by radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering and then ablated by a 532 nm nanosecond pulsed laser. The effects of laser fluence and defocusing amount on the width and depth of laser-ablated grooves on 100- and 600-nm-thick Ag films were systematically investigated under single- and multi-scan ablation. The results suggested that the Ag films could be successfully removed from the substrate owing to laser-induced thermoelastic force or vaporization. It was confirmed that laser fluence and defocusing amount played very important roles in controlling the width and depth of the laser-ablated grooves. In the present work, grooves with widths ranging from 53 to 196 μm and depths ranging from 56 to 196 nm were obtained on 100-nm-thick Ag films by single-scan laser ablation, and laser ablation or removal with controllable depths was realized on 600-nm-thick Ag films by adopting single- or multi-scan (i.e., scanning numbers of 1–6). Furthermore, square spiral Ag patterns were successfully obtained by single- and multi-scan laser ablation and showed good electrical conductivity in a simple circuit. This work may have great potential applications in various fields that demand width and depth control of laser ablation/removal.