Biomimetic sapphire windows enabled by inside-out femtosecond laser deep-scribing

1.
State Key Laboratory of Integrated Optoelectronics, College of Electronic Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, 130012, China
2.
Centre for Micro-Photonics, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC, 3122, Australia
3.
Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication, ANFF, 151 Wellington Road, Clayton, VIC, 3168, Australia
4.
State Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement Technology and Instruments, Department of Precision Instrument, Tsinghua University, Haidian, Beijing, 100084, China

Funds: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, Grant Nos. 61825502, 61960206003, 61935008 and 62105117) and the Scientific Research Project of the Education Department of Jilin Province (JJKH20221005KJ).

摘要

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Abstract: Femtosecond laser machining of biomimetic micro/nanostructures with high aspect ratio (larger than 10) on ultrahard materials, such as sapphire, is a challenging task, because the uncontrollable surface damage usually results in poor surface structures, especially for deep scribing. Here, we report an inside-out femtosecond laser deep scribing technology in combination with etching process for fabricating bio-inspired micro/nanostructures with high-aspect-ratio on sapphire. To effectively avoid the uncontrollable damage at the solid/air interface, a sacrificial layer of silicon oxide was employed for surface protection. High-quality microstructures with an aspect ratio as high as 80:1 have been fabricated on sapphire surface. As a proof-of-concept application, we produced a moth-eye inspired antireflective window with sub-wavelength pyramid arrays on sapphire surface, by which broadband (3–5 μm) and high transmittance (98% at 4 μm, the best results reported so far) have been achieved. The sacrificial layer assisted inside-out femtosecond laser deep scribing technology is effective and universal, holding great promise for producing micro/nanostructured optical devices.
- Femtosecond laser /
- Etching /
- Antireflection /
- Biomimetic microstructures /
- Sapphire

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