Ultrafast laser-ACTIVATEd growth of materials – ACTIVATE

The next generation of micro-/nano-technologies to fabricate microelectronic, photonic, MEMS/NEMS components require processes that operate in 3D, are flexible, fast, parallel, and minimize waste of elements which sourcing is environmentally costly. However, most of the conventional micro-fabrication techniques are based on 2.5D processing. High throughput additive manufacturing is conventionally either limited to scales of tens of micrometers or to organic polymers. ACTIVATE will overcome these limitations by applying a new approach to material growth by chemical deposition with femtosecond laser pulses. These will activate engineered precursors via a multiphotonic transition. Nonlinear photolysis will allow progressively growing inorganic materials with sub- micrometric scale in a highly flexible 3D process. ACTIVATE is a 48-month project combining 4 partners with the highly complementary expertise in physics, chemistry, and material science that is required to solve such a multidisciplinary challenge. Key objectives are:
1. To engineer precursor molecules that combine a high multiphotonic absorption and a high level of degradation of the ligands, with two complementary strategies applied to Pt for metals and ZnO for semiconductor oxides.
2. Study the ultrafast photophysics and photochemistry of the reaction.
3. Demonstrate localized direct writing.
4. Develop a complementary approach to improve the spatial resolution by one order of magnitude based on dissociation reaction quenching with a second laser pulse.
The project outcome will be a new approach for extremely localized high-quality functional material deposition, with parallel, high throughput capability and compatible with clean-room constraints.