Photothermal laser printing of sub-micrometer crystalline material for microelectronics

Progress in the direction of laser printing of sub-micrometer inorganic materials has mostly relied on inorganic/organic hybrid inks, which require a tedious post-printing high-temperature processing step, which is incompatible with the printing of multi-material structures. Here, we use a photothermal printing scheme to direct laser print sub-micrometer single crystalline ZnO without any post-processing steps beyond a simple rinse. This is accomplished using an intentionally chosen substrate and few milliwatts of continuous wave laser power. We further demonstrate the versatility of this simple print scheme by extending it to the photothermal laser printing of metals.