Nanochannel structures with a feature size deeply under the diffraction limit and a high aspect ratio hold huge biomedical significance, which is especially challenging to be realized on hard and brittle materials, such as silica, diamond, and sapphire. By simultaneously depositing the pulse energy on the surface and inside the sample, nanochannels with the smallest feature size of 18 nm (∼1 / 30λ) and more than 200 aspect ratios are achieved inside silica, the mechanism of which can be concluded as the surface assisting material ejection effect. Both the experimental and theoretical results prove that the coaction of the superficial “hot domain” and internal hot domain dominates the generation of the nanochannels, which gives new insights into the laser-material interacting mechanisms and potentially promotes the corresponding application fields.
This Conference Presentation, “Compressed Ultrafast Spectral Temporal (CUST) photography” was recorded at Photonics West LASE 2020, held in San Francisco, California, United States of America.
Microfluidic chips and microreactors have been widely used in various fields due to their low reagent consumption, fast reaction speed and good safety. Besides, temperature is the key parameter of many biochemical reactions. So it is important for the creation of temperature controllable micro-reactor. However, There are some problems in existing micro-reactors, such as structure, size, temperature control method and temperature distribution. Here we report a method based on an improved femtosecond laser wet etching technology and metal-microsolidifying process for the fabrication of microchannel and 3D microcoils inside fused silica. Based on this approach, we fabricate a temperature controllable micro-reactor used for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) by integrating 3D metallic microcoils and microfluidic channel twined by microcoils inside fused silica. We precisely and conveniently get required temperature by varying the voltage of microcoils. The micro-reactor also exhibits a high integration level and good uniformity of temperature distribution. In addition, we get a miniaturized device which can be conveniently integrated.
Materials showing special extreme wettability are particularly captivating. Until now, a very large number of superhydrophobic surfaces have been fabricated, and these artificial materials have a wide range of applications. Different with superhydrophobic surfaces, superoleophobic surfaces that repel organic liquids are difficult to achieve because of the low surface tension of organic liquids. Superoleophobic surfaces have also gained more and more attention recently for their remarkable potential applications in oil-repellent coatings, self-cleaning, oil/water separation, oil droplet manipulation, chemical shielding, anti-blocking, oil capture, bioadhesion, and so on. The realization of more complicated and subtle superoleophobic surfaces has many opportunities and challenges. Herein, we systematically summarize the recent developments of superoleophobic surfaces. This talk will focus on the design, fabrication, characteristics, functions, and important applications of various superoleophobic surfaces. Although many significant advances have been achieved, superoleophobic surfaces are still in their “toddler stage” of development. Therefore, the current challenges and future prospects of this fast-growing field of superoleophobicity are finally discussed.
Glioma accounts for the majority of brain cancer and is the most common and aggressive human cerebral disease with low survival rates, which have received much attention on how the cancer cells can be controlled. The aim of this report is to investigate the controlling of C6 glioma cells on 3D micro/nano silicon structures with different surface energy. The silicon surface topography was formed by femtosecond laser and adjusted through changing the processing parameter. The transformation of surface energy was realized by covering a layer of organosilane with low surface tention--1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecyltrichlorosilane (PFDTS). The results showed that the fewest C6 cells adhered onto hierarchical micro-mountain structures with organosilane, which exhibited the anti-cell property, while the most C6 cells adhered onto nano-grain particle structures without any modification. For the same 3D structure, the adhesion force between cells and silicon surface with various structure was weaker while lowering the surface energy. Based on the analysis of fluorescence and scanning electron microscopy images, we proposed an underlining mechanism on how C6 cell morphology and adhesion is controlled by silicon 3D structure and surface energy. In addition, the formation of arbitrary cell patterns was achieved successfully. The findings may provide a conception for the preparation of cell detector and implantable biological scaffold.
Existing multispectral imagers mostly use 2D array sensors to separately measure 2D data slices in a 3D spatialspectral data cube. They suffer from low photon efficiency, limited spectral range, and high cost. To address these issues, we propose to conduct multispectral imaging using a photodiode, to take full advantage of its high sensitivity, wide spectral range, low cost, and small size. Specifically, utilizing the photodiode’s fast response, a scene’s 3D spatial-spectral information is sinusoidally multiplexed into a dense 1D measurement sequence, and then demultiplexed computationally under the single-pixel imaging scheme. A proof-of-concept setup is built to capture multispectral data of 256 pixels × 256 pixels × 10 wavelength bands ranging from 450 nm to 650 nm. The imaging scheme holds great potentials for various biological applications such as fluorescence microscopy and endoscopy.
Microlens arrays with specially required micropatterns are highly desirable for digital optical processors, microimaging systems, optical photolithography as well as various biomedical imaging and detecting applications. However, realization of such devices efficiently remains technically challenging. Here, a facile and efficient route for large-area microlens arrays (MLAs) with programmable micropatterns is demonstrated. The fabrication process involves a femtosecond laser wet etch process combined with the replication process of hot embossing. Special arranged microlens arrays, including a doublet microlens array, a three-microlens group array, a four-microlens group array, and a six-petallike microlens array as examples, were fabricated by this method. The fabricated MLAs exhibit excellent surface morphology quality and optical imaging properties. This presented technique provides an efficient way to flexibly design the size, shape and the arrangement of the MLAs by adjusting the process parameters such as the pulse energy, the number of shots etching time and the distribution of ablation-induced craters and Programming arrangement.
In the last decades, fabrication of microlens array in materials with high-damage threshold has attracted increasing interest, especially in the application of high-power laser. In this paper, we propose an advanced strategy to efficiently fabricate microlens array on the surface of glass using a single-pulsed femtosecond laser wet etch process, which is a combination of high-speed laser scanning and the subsequent chemical etch with HF solution. Based on this method, double-sided microlens array, non-regular arrays consisting of close-packed concave microlens array on one side and regular concave MLA on the other side, were fabricated on the 1cm*1cm glass. Especially over one million microlenses could be acquired within an hour, exhibiting great superiority in practical application. Moreover, the optical properties of the asymmetric double-sided MLA were experimentally characterized, and the experimental results reveal the good light homogenization performance.
This paper demonstrates a novel electro-thermal micro actuator’s design, fabrication and device tests which combine microfluidic technology and microsolidics process. A three-dimensional solenoid microchannel with high aspect ratio is fabricated inside the silica glass by an improved femtosecond laser wet etch (FLWE) technology, and the diameter of the spiral coil is only 200 μm. Molten alloy (Bi/In/Sn/Pb) with high melting point is injected into the three-dimensional solenoid microchannel inside the silica glass , then it solidifys and forms an electro-thermal micro actuator. The device is capable of achieving precise temperature control and quick response, and can also be easily integrated into MEMS, sensors and ‘lab on a chip’ (LOC) platform inside the fused silica substrate.
Femtosecond laser microfabrication has been attracting increasing interest of researchers in recent years, and been applied on interface science to control the wettability of solid surfaces. Herein, we fabricate a kind of rough microstructures on polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) sheet by femtosecond laser. The femtosecond laser ablated surfaces show durable superhydrophobicity and ultralow water adhesion even after storing in a harsh environment for a long time, including strong acid, strong alkali, and high temperature. A penetrating microholes array was further generated on the rough superhydrophobic PTFE sheet by a subsequent mechanical drilling process. The as-prepared material was successfully applied in the field of oil/water separation due to the inverse superhydrophobicity and superoleophilicity.
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an important interferometric diagnostic technique, which provides cross-sectional views of biological tissues’ subsurface microstructures. However, the imaging quality of high-speed OCT is limited by the large speckle noise. To address this problem, we propose a multiframe algorithmic method to denoise OCT volume. Mathematically, we build an optimization model which forces the temporally registered frames to be low-rank and the gradient in each frame to be sparse, under the constraints from logarithmic image formation and nonuniform noise variance. In addition, a convex optimization algorithm based on the augmented Lagrangian method is derived to solve the above model. The results reveal that our approach outperforms the other methods in terms of both speckle noise suppression and crucial detail preservation.
This paper reports a flexible fabrication method for 3D solenoid microcoils in silica glass. The method consists of femtosecond laser wet etching (FLWE) and microsolidics process. The 3D microchannel with high aspect ratio is fabricated by an improved FLWE method. In the microsolidics process, an alloy was chosen as the conductive metal. The microwires are achieved by injecting liquid alloy into the microchannel, and allowing the alloy to cool and solidify. The alloy microwires with high melting point can overcome the limitation of working temperature and improve the electrical property. The geometry, the height and diameter of microcoils were flexibly fabricated by the pre-designed laser writing path, the laser power and etching time. The 3D microcoils can provide uniform magnetic field and be widely integrated in many magnetic microsystems.
We theoretically investigated the ultrafast thermal excitation behaviors on Au films surface irradiated by polarization-shaped femtosecond laser. The spatio-temporal dynamics of temperature evolution in Au film with polarization-shaped femtosecond laser excitation are obtained based on Finite Element Method (FEM). It is revealed that the phonon temperature fields can be flexibly adjusted by optimizing the polarization state combinations of polarization-shaped double femtosecond laser pulses. The results are attributed to pulse synthetic effect, which closely depends on the polarization state combinations of double femtosecond laser pulses. The study provides the basic for understanding of the thermal excitation dynamics for optimizing laser micro and nano-fabrications via tailoring the polarization state of temporally shaped femtosecond laser.
In this study, a three-dimensional (3D) micromixer with cross-linked double helical microchannels is studied to achieve rapid mixing of fluids at low Reynolds numbers (Re). The 3D micromixer takes full advantages of the chaotic advection model with helical microchannels; meanwhile, the proposed crossing structure of double helical microchannels enables two flow patterns of repelling flow and straight flow in the fluids to promote the agitation effect. The complex 3D micromixer is realized by an improved femtosecond laser wet etching (FLWE) technology embedded in fused silica. The mixing results show that cross-linked double helical microchannels can achieve excellent mixing within 3 cycles (300 μm) over a wide range of low Re (1.5×10-3~600), which compare well with the conventional passive micromixers. This highly-effective micromixer is hoped to contribute to the integration of microfluidic systems.
Using a femtosecond time-resolved optical polarigraphy (FTOP) imaging technique, we measured the ultrafast propagation dynamics of femtosecond laser pulses in transparent materials, CS2 and fused silica, respectively. The FTOP images showed different profiles in these two media due to their different nonlinear response time. Based on the FTOP technique, a femtosecond time-resolved single-shot optical Kerr effect measurement was demonstrated, which can be accomplished using a single-laser shot and has a time resolution of about 100 fs. The polarization dependence of the image intensity indicated that the FTOP images were mainly induced by the transient birefringence effect induced by the pump pulse.
We demonstrate a facile and flexible method to fabricate close-packed microlens arrays (MLAs). Glass molding
templates with concave structures are produced by a femtosecond (fs)-laser point-by-point exposures followed by a
chemical treatment, and convex MLAs are subsequently replicated on Poly(methyl methacrylate) [PMMA] using a hot
embossing system. As an example, a microlens array (MLA) with 60-μm rectangular-shaped spherical microlenses is
fabricated. Optical performances of the MLAs, such as focusing and imaging properties are tested, and the results
demonstrate the uniformity and smooth surfaces of the MLA. We also demonstrated that the shape and alignment of the
arrays could be controlled by different parameters.
Femtosecond laser interference is a promising tool for micro-fabrication and micromachining of periodical structures on
the surface of samples or inside transparent materials, but femtosecond laser pulses are very hard to interfere due to their
spectrum widths may reach to several tens of nanometers, and their spectrum widths will be stretched by shorting the
duration according to the Fourier transform. We realized two 25 fs pulses interference and encoded micro-gratings on
Au-Cr thin films using this interference pattern. The interference patterns of two laser pulses with different pulse
durations in sub-hundred femtosecond time domain were calculated to explore the influence of pulse durations on
processing qualities of encoded micro-gratings. The results show that, the shorter pulses are preferable to fabricate
micro-gratings with fine resolution on intractable materials, and longer pulses are helpful to improve encoding efficiency
and contrast ratio of bright & dark interfered fringes. The differences between encoded micro-gratings on Au-Cr thin film
using these interference patterns validated our analysis, which are hardly observed when pulse duration is longer than
100 fs mainly because the size of interfered area is larger than the focal spots. Moreover, the distance between two focal
spots also has been chosen to identify our calculations, and the experimental results are agreement with the calculations.
The ultrafast third-order nonlinear optical properties of C60+ vinyltriethoxysilane H2C=CHSi(OC2H5)3 (C60+VTES) sol-gel were investigated by the femtosecond optical Kerr gate (OKG) technique at 800 nm. The third-order optical susceptibility was measured to be 5.42 × 10−14 esu for C60+VTES at a weight concentration of 0.06 wt.%. Using C60+VTES as the OKG material, we acquired a series of narrow bandwidth and symmetric gated spectra continuously from the chirped white light continuum generated in water with femtosecond laser pulses. The gated spectra obtained using the C60+VTES OKG have distinct superiorities compared with CS2.
This paper reviews and evaluates several state-of-the-art online object tracking algorithms. Notwithstanding decades
of efforts, object tracking remains a challenging problem due to factors such as illumination, pose, scale, deformation,
motion blur, noise, and occlusion. To account for appearance change, most recent tracking algorithms focus on robust
object representations and effective state prediction. In this paper, we analyze the components of each tracking method and
identify their key roles in dealing with specific challenges, thereby shedding light on how to choose and design algorithms
for different situations. We compare state-of-the-art online tracking methods including the IVT,1 VRT,2 FragT,3 BoostT,4 SemiT,5 BeSemiT,6 L1T,7 MILT,8 VTD9 and TLD10 algorithms on numerous challenging sequences, and evaluate them
with different performance metrics. The qualitative and quantitative comparative results demonstrate the strength and
weakness of these algorithms.
Fabrication of microstructures embedded in silica glasses using a femtosecond (fs)-laser-assisted chemical etching
technique is systematically studied in this work. By scanning the laser pulses inside samples followed by the treatment of
5%-diluted hydrofluoric (HF) acid, groups of straight channels are fabricated and the relationship between the etching
rate and processing parameters, including laser power, scanning speed, scanning time and laser polarization, is
demonstrated. Based on the optimization of these parameters, complicated microstructures such as channels, cavities and
their combinations are manufactured. The work has great potential applications in microelectromechanical systems,
biomedical detection and chemical analysis.
The photochromic retinal protein bacteriorhodopsin (BR) is found in the cell membrane of Halobacterium salinarium. It is the key protein for photosynthetic growth of H.salinarium. BR shows an exceptional stability towards chemical, thermal, and photochemical degradation. The photochromic properties of Bacteriorhodopsin provide the possibility of application in optical information storage. Photoexcition of the O-state of BR, which has an all-trans confirmation, leads to a state with 9-cis configuration, which is thermally stable. The 9-cis containing photoproduct of the O-state was named P-state. It absorbs at 490 nm and can be photochemically reconverted to the initial state. We propose a system of optical information storage in a BR polymer film, which is a reversible optical data recording material and can be rewritten over 106 times without degradation of the film. A three-wavelength EDRAW (Erase Direct Read After Write) experiment was performed. The photoexcited P(490) state shows a permanent storage property confirmed by our contrast ratio experiments. The result of long-term information storage in BR films more than 1 year is obtained.
The photochromic retinal protein bacteriorhodopsin (BR) is found in the cell membrane of Halobacterium salinarium. It is the key protein for photosynthetic growth of H.salinarium. BR shows an exceptional stability towards chemical, thermal, and photochemical degradation. In this paper, we propose a system of optical information storage in a BR polymer film. A three- wavelength EDRAW (Erase Direct Read After Write) experiment was performed. The photoexcited P(490) state shows a permanent storage property confirmed by our contrast ratio experiments. We have performed the reversible operations of 'write' and 'erase' with the BR polymer film over hundreds of cycles in our experiments. The readout contrast ratio is very sensitive to the intensity and wavelength of probe beam and the recorded data can be readout from 530 to approximately 630 nm with different contrast ratio. Within the range of 570 to approximately 600 nmm, the better contrast ratio can be obtained. Considering the erasing effect for the reason of absorption of P state, both higher contrast ratio and nondestructive reading can be realized by using 594 nm as the readout wavelength. The experimental result such BR material is very suitable for long-term photochromic information storage.
Diamond is regarded as a negative electron affinity material because of the field emission from CVD diamond films at low applied fields (approximately 20 kV/cm), which makes diamond a potential candidate for flat panel display. In order to find the way of fabricating high quantity diamond films via CVD, the diamond nucleation process should be studied of the first importance. High density heteroepitaxial diamond nuclei on mirror-polished Si(100) substrate have been accomplished by DC glow discharge in a conventional hot filament chemical vapor deposition system. The glow discharge current density as high as 80 mA/cm2 was attained, which was mostly contributed by the silicon surface instead of the metal holder exposed in the plasma, as the negative bias was applied between the mesh and the substrate. The grown nuclei were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy. After the first 10 min deposition, uniform, well-developed diamond nuclei of D(110)//Si(110) and D(100)//Si(100) with a film thickness of about 180 nm were achieved.
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