Our Thin-Film Laser Etching Services

Laser Thin Film Etching (also called Laser Patterning or Laser Ablation) came into practice first as a means of etching touch panel displays of indium tin oxide (ITO) on a PET sub-surface. Laserod pioneered thin film etching in 1985 when we designed one of the first laser patterning machines for the Fluke Corporation.

Laser etching is a single step, dry etch, non-contact, non-chemical, maskless, ablative process. The conventional method of patterning transparent conductive materials involves a multi-step process using custom masks to selectively exposure photoresist coated substrate that are etched in acid to produce the desired circuit.

Until recent years, the laser etching process was used mainly on R&D applications, as laser patterning could not compete with the high volume production of chemical acid etching. Recent advances in laser and motion technology now allow Laserod to increase our laser ablation rate by a factor of ten, so laser patterning is now found in a number of manufacturing environments from flexible electronics to applications in the energy and medical sectors.

Laser etching offers distinct advantages over other techniques:

• Because it uses no chemicals, laser etching is environmentally green.
• Because the laser is entirely computer controlled, laser etching is easily automated.
• Laser etching setup requires only direct from CAD to substrate programming of a computer, so is more flexible and ideal for quick turnaround time.
• Laser etching can register features down to the micron level.
• Unlike chemical etching, laser etching can be used on a broad variety and types of substrates and materials including glass, plastics and ceramics with ITO, FTO, silver nanowire, carbon nanotubes, chrome, gold and many others.

Some of the many laser patterning projects Laserod has successfully completed include:

• Creating electrode patterns for medical devices
• Ablating turn signal indicators for side mirrors in the automotive industry
• Touch display patterning for the cell phone industry
• Patterning logos
• Creating patterns with ITO, gold, aluminum or copper on glass, quartz or sapphire
• Removing dielectric materials to expose electrodes
• Forming transmissive patterns in optically reflective coatings
• Machining channels in micro fluidic devices
• Marking fiducials and serializing on semiconductor wafers
• Ablating coatings on copper or stainless steel