Design, implementation, and characterization of a fast acousto-optofluidic multi-focal laser system

Laser-based systems are fundamental tools in several research and industrial fields as important as optical imaging and material processing. They grant high precision and flexibility, though, the throughput of these processes is constrained by their inherent point-scanning nature. An effective solution to this problem is beam parallelization, though, current implementations suffer from lack of flexibility, long response time or optical aberrations. In order to overcome these issues, we propose an original acousto-optofludic (AOF) device that exploits mechanical vibrations in a liquid to diffract light in a comb of multiple beams. In this work, we detail design, implementation, and optical characterization of AOF-based multi-focal laser system. In particular, we show that the main features of the acoustically generated beamlets can be tuned by properly varying frequency, amplitude, and phase of the mechanical oscillations. The application of this device to laser direct writing will enable high throughput processes of various materials in an highly tunable way.

[1]  Martí Duocastella,et al.  Fast Acoustic Light Sculpting for On‐Demand Maskless Lithography , 2019, Advanced science.

[2]  Warren S. Warren,et al.  High-resolution acousto-optic shaping of unamplified and amplified femtosecond laser pulses , 1997 .

[3]  B. D. Cook,et al.  Unified Approach to Ultrasonic Light Diffraction , 1967, IEEE Transactions on Sonics and Ultrasonics.

[4]  M. Schmidt,et al.  Tailored laser beam shaping for efficient and accurate microstructuring , 2018 .

[5]  Mitsuo Maeda,et al.  Lithographical laser ablation using femtosecond laser , 2004 .

[6]  Seung Hwan Ko,et al.  Selective sintering of metal nanoparticle ink for maskless fabrication of an electrode micropattern using a spatially modulated laser beam by a digital micromirror device. , 2014, ACS applied materials & interfaces.

[7]  C. Raman,et al.  The diffraction of light by high frequency sound waves: Part V , 1936 .

[8]  Shuhei Tanaka,et al.  Arbitrary micropatterning method in femtosecond laser microprocessing using diffractive optical elements. , 2004, Optics express.

[9]  Scott A. Mathews,et al.  Laser 3D micro-manufacturing , 2016 .

[10]  E. Mcleod,et al.  Mechanics and refractive power optimization of tunable acoustic gradient lenses , 2007 .

[11]  A. Cheng,et al.  simultaneous two-photon calcium imaging at different depths with spatiotemporal multiplexing , 2011 .

[12]  Claire M Brown,et al.  Any Way You Slice It-A Comparison of Confocal Microscopy Techniques. , 2015, Journal of biomolecular techniques : JBT.