ABSTRACT
The use of laser direct writing methods, in particular LIFT for printing various materials and its ability to integrate dissimilar materials into devices, is the fulcrum of this chapter. One of the laser-based techniques used for microfabrication applications, which has drawn a lot of attention over the years, is laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT). The chapter shows that with LIFT, it is possible to print liquid materials with a resolution in the order of one or several micrometer(s). However, it presents the drawback of requiring the preparation of the liquid to be printed in thin film form, which limits its possibilities towards industrialization. The chapter also shows that few examples of some of the materials transferred by LIFT and several other variations of the technique and also a few examples of functional devices fabricated with this method. One of the first examples where the possibility of printing long lines from liquid-phase donor materials by varying the distance between successive droplets.
