Influence of the thermal properties of substrate on the nanosecond pulsed laser scanning ablation of Ag nanoparticle layer

In printed electronics, nanosecond pulsed laser scanning ablation is used to repair misprinted conductive silver (Ag) nanoparticle (NP) lines. Nanosecond-pulsed laser ablation is a thermal process influenced by the thermal dissipation of the substrate. In this study, we investigated the influence of the thermal properties of the substrate on the scanning ablation of Ag NP layers using a 532 nm Nd:YAG laser. We examined the ablation aspects of nanosecond pulsed scanning ablation of Ag NP layers on polyimide (PI), glass, and crystalline silicon (Si) substrates. The dried Ag NP layers and Ag NP layers that were sintered at 100, 150, and 200 degrees C were compared. No significant difference was observed between the ablation thresholds of the Ag NP on PI and glass substrates at all sintering temperatures. However, when the sintering temperature was 150 and 200 degrees C, the ablation thresholds of Ag NP on Si substrate were 371 and 435 mJ/cm2, which are noticeably larger than the 284 and 355 mJ/cm2 of 150 and 200 degrees C sintered Ag NP on PI substrate and 273 and 349 mJ/cm2 of 150 and 200 degrees C sintered Ag NP on glass substrate. Qualitative and quantitative explanations of the observed trends were provided.