Patterning of Aluminium thin film on polyethylene terephthalate by multi-beam picosecond laser

High speed patterning of a 30 nm thick Aluminium thin film on a flexible Polyethylene Terephthalate substrate was demonstrated with the aid of Computer Generated Holograms (CGH׳s) applied to a phase only Spatial Light Modulator. Low fluence picosecond laser pulses minimise thermal damage to the sensitive substrate and thus clean, single and multi-beam, front side thin film removal is achieved with good edge quality. Interestingly, rear side ablation shows significant Al film delamination. Measured front and rear side ablation thresholds were Fth=0.20±0.01 J cm−2 and Fth=0.15±0.01 J cm−2 respectively. With laser repetition rate of 200 kHz and 8 diffractive spots, a film removal rate of R>0.5 cm2 s−1 was demonstrated during patterning with a fixed CGH and 5 W average laser power. The effective laser repetition rate was feff~1.3 MHz. The application of 30 stored CGH׳s switching up to 10 Hz was also synchronised with motion control, allowing dynamic large area multi-beam patterning which however, slows micro-fabrication.