RUI: Mechanisms of Resonant Infrared Pulsed Laser Ablation and Deposition of Polymers

聚合物薄膜在生物医学工程、化学传感和有机电子学等不同领域的各种应用中都是必需的。有机电子产品极具吸引力，除了其他原因外，因为它们比传统电子产品轻得多，需要的能量更少，因此代表了下一代的可能性。在这项研究中，用于沉积薄膜的技术使用高功率红外激光器，可以有效地蒸发聚合物，并将使有机电子学等领域的独特研究成为可能，这些领域很难或不可能通过其他方式进行。例如，许多感兴趣的聚合物的溶解度很差，因此难以加工，而本提案中的方法不要求聚合物是可溶的。在这种情况下，为了了解有利挥发的机制，需要进一步了解激光材料相互作用，这些研究的价值具有普遍的科学价值。聚合物薄膜加工提出了许多挑战。这种新方法在聚合物起始材料中使用一种调谐到振动模式的红外激光器。这提供了一种有效汽化聚合物而不发生化学变化和最小断键的方法，类似于脉冲激光沉积的既定技术，除了由于紫外线光子与有机物的强烈光化学相互作用而不使用紫外线激光。我们的指导方针是有希望的初步结果，已经观察到，该过程的效率，甚至沉积薄膜的物理化学性质可以依赖于由激光激发的特定振动模式。这种模式特定的行为与激光一直在寻求。这些研究的多学科性质自然有利于广泛的学生群体的参与。已经在西顿大厅参加暑期研究的SEED项目中学生将从中受益。来自西顿霍尔生物、化学和物理系的学生将获得研究机会，这些机会将教会学生跨学科合作，并有效地相互沟通。最后，在这一研究领域，西顿霍尔大学（一个RUI机构）、范德比尔特大学和海军研究实验室之间建立了合作关系，这将为所有参与者提供独特的机会和利益。

Polymer thin films are required for a variety of applications in such diverse areas as biomedical engineering, chemical sensing, and organic electronics. Organic electronics are extremely attractive, among other reasons, because they are much lighter than conventional electronics, and require less power and as such represent next generation possibilities. The technique that will be used to deposit films in this study uses high power infrared lasers that efficiently vaporize polymers and will enable unique studies in fields such as organic electronics that are difficult or impossible by other means. For example, many polymers of interest suffer from poor solubility and therefore are difficult to process, while the method in this proposal does not require polymers to be soluble. In this case, the laser material-interaction requires further understanding in order to understand the mechanism of favorable volatilization, and the value of these studies is of general scientific interest. Thin film processing of polymers presents many challenges. The novel approach here uses an infrared laser that is tuned to a vibrational mode in the polymer starting material. This provides a means to efficiently vaporize polymers without chemical alteration and a minimum of bond breaking, and is similar to the established technique of pulsed laser deposition, except that a UV laser is not used because of the intense photochemical interactions of UV photons with organics. We are guided by promising preliminary results, having observed that the efficiency of the process and even the physicochemical properties of the deposited films can depend on the particular vibrational mode that is excited by the laser. Such mode specific behavior with lasers has long been sought.The multidisciplinary nature of these studies naturally facilitates the participation of a wide group of students. Secondary students in Project SEED who are already participating in summer research at Seton Hall will tangentially benefit. Students from the biology, chemistry, and physics department at Seton Hall will be presented with research opportunities that will teach students to cooperate across disciplinary lines and to effectively communicate with each other. Finally, there is an established collaboration in this area of research between Seton Hall University (an RUI institution), Vanderbilt University, and the Naval Research Laboratory, which will present unique opportunities and benefits to all involved.