National Science Foundation awards grant for study of thin-film applications
Friday, Oct. 11, 2019
MANHATTAN — Shuting Lei, professor in the industrial and manufacturing systems engineering department at the Kansas State University Carl R. Ice College of Engineering, has been awarded a nearly $300,000 research grant from the Advanced Manufacturing Program of the National Science Foundation to study high-performance laser scribing of advanced thin-film materials.
"Thin-film materials have broad applications in the areas of electronics, light sources, renewable energy, sensors, mechanical systems and more," Lei said. "With the emergence of new thin-film structures, there is increasing demand for high-performance laser-scribing techniques capable of clean removal of a thin film with minimal collateral damage."
The proposed research will address this challenge at the fundamental level by studying how a laser beam can be used to selectively remove a thin film in a multilayer structure under a new laser-irradiation strategy. The project will contribute to the scientific community by advancing a fundamental understanding of laser-matter interaction with advanced thin-film materials.
"The basic research from this project will generate scientific knowledge to enable the development of high-performance, laser-scribing techniques that have applications in numerous advanced technology areas including scribing of solar cells and smart window glass, patterning of flexible electronics and micromachining of microelectromechanical systems and light-emitting diodes," Lei said.
