Investigation of Mesoscale Laser-induced Thermal Effects on Laser Micromachined
Structures
Q-B. Lu and J. Bai
Estimation of the temperature distribution, the thermal deformation and the stress, as well as the thermal stable time of a mesoscale micromachined structure attributed to laser irradiation is of great significance because the thermal effects substantially affect a suite of properties. This paper investigates the laser-induced thermal effects of both film bulks and elastic structures with suspensions via finite element (FE) modeling, then proposes a transient model to evaluate them. The temperature variations and the thermal deformations and stresses as functions of the irradiation time are given, in consideration of the incident laser conditions, the ambient temperature, and boundary conditions such as the dimensions of the structure. Some laws and tendencies are found. The study allows for better understanding the mesoscale light-matter interaction and opto-thermal effects; thus, paves the way for the design of high performance devices which contain micromachined structures and equivalent heat sources.
Keywords: Laser irradiation, thermal deformation, thermal distribution, finite element (FE) modeling, transient model