Micro-Nano Processing: Femtosecond Laser vs. Picosecond Laser – How to Choose Tool?
In high-precision fields such as microelectronic manufacturing, medical device R...
MONO | 2025-11
INDUSTRY
Inkjet printing technology has been deeply integrated into modern life and office work. Its core principle is to precisely deposit tiny ink droplets on paper or other media to form clear images and text.
You may have wondered why printed images are not as sharp as those displayed on screens. This is often closely related to DPI (dots per inch), a key indicator of printers. DPI measures the density of dots in an image and profoundly affects print resolution and quality. The realization of DPI directly lies in the countless microholes on the print nozzle—these microholes are crucial for precisely ejecting ink or toner to form text and images.
Higher DPI means finer images, which relies on smaller nozzles. For example, the diameter of nozzles in 1200 DPI inkjet printers is usually 10-20 microns, while that in 2400 DPI printers is further reduced to 5-10 microns. High-end models are generally equipped with 2100-4200 nozzles to achieve the extreme density of 1200 DPI, meeting the needs of high-quality photo printing.
The impact of nozzles on printer performance is reflected in three dimensions:
Print Precision: Smaller and more numerous nozzles result in finer ink droplets and more precise position control, leading to higher print resolution (DPI). High DPI is one of the important factors for sharper text edges and richer image details.
Print Speed: More nozzles combined with faster ejection frequencies can output more ink droplets per unit time, directly improving printing efficiency to meet the high-efficiency needs of modern offices.
Color Performance: For color printers, by precisely controlling the ink ejection amount and overlay mode of nozzles for colors such as red, green, and blue, more colors can be reproduced, achieving wide-color-gamut printing.
There are various microfabrication technologies, including laser micro-drilling, micro-mechanical drilling, and micro-EDM (micro-electrical discharge machining). Considering the universal requirements for high precision, high aspect ratio, high quality, and multiple processing materials, laser micro-drilling has become the preferred choice among these technologies due to its relatively simple, efficient, and reliable processing mechanism. In particular, femtosecond laser technology has attracted increasing attention for its ability to efficiently and non-destructively drill a large number of closely arranged microhole arrays at the microscopic scale, showing significant advantages especially in the field of print nozzle manufacturing.
For example, in printer nozzle applications, femtosecond lasers can achieve ultra-precision nozzle array processing with an aperture of 18 microns and a precision tolerance of only ±1 micron.
Extreme Roundness and Uniformity: Laser energy instantly vaporizes materials through nonlinear absorption, resulting in microholes with a roundness of over 95%, no burrs or deformation on edges. This ensures stable trajectories of ink droplets and completely avoids color mixing and blurring caused by irregular hole shapes in traditional processing.
Micron-Level Size Control: With a precision tolerance of ±1 micron, thousands of nozzles have highly consistent sizes and positions, perfectly meeting the needs of precise coupling between printer nozzles and other components.
Ultra-Smooth Surface: The inner wall roughness of microholes after processing is Ra<0.1 micron, which significantly reduces the risk of ink clogging, extends the service life of nozzles, and lowers printer maintenance costs.
Monochromatic Technology's femtosecond laser nano-drilling equipment is equipped with a tightly focused femtosecond laser, combined with a precision motion control system, to achieve efficiency improvements in print nozzle processing.
Key Technologies and Implementation Paths:
· Beam Shaping Technology: When femtosecond lasers interact with materials, energy is concentrated in a tiny area in an extremely short time, vaporizing materials through a nonlinear absorption mechanism. To achieve high-quality microhole arrays, advanced beam shaping technology is adopted for special flat-top spot treatment, enabling uniform distribution of laser energy in the processing area. This uniform light intensity distribution ensures more uniform and controllable material removal during microhole processing, thus obtaining microhole arrays with rounder shapes, smoother edges, and consistent apertures.
Comparison of Drilling Effects Between Single-Pulse and Dual-Pulse Beam Processing
· Multi-Focus Parallel Processing: A single laser beam can be split into hundreds of parallel focuses through array lenses or spatial light modulators, processing multiple rows and columns of microholes simultaneously, meeting the needs for efficient and high-precision manufacturing of thousands of microhole arrays in print heads.
