Photostructural effect

Chalcogenide glasses respond to irradiation with optical or ultraviolet photons in a unique manner. They exhibit photostructural effects. Photostructural effects, in general, fall into two different categories. The first category is based on changes in scalar properties. 

Electronics Production of circuit boards (producing contacts in boreholes), modified electrolytic condensers, modified field effect transistors, molecular electronics (unidirectional conductors), photostructural lacquers based on ICPs (electron beam lithography), novel photoluminescent diodes (LED), data storage (e.g. spatially resolved eleclrochromics)... 

F. E. Livingston, W. W. Hansen, A. Huang, H. Helvajian, Effect of laser parameters on the exposure and selective etch rate in photostructurable galss, Proc. SPIE, 2002, 4637, 404-412. 

Alternatively laser-structured stainless steel foils or even machined thin brass sheets can be used to photostructure glasses. However, such masks offer lower precision. The precision of structures in laser-structured stainless steel foils is around 20 pm, whereas that of machined thin brass sheets is not better than 50 pm. Such masks offer only a limited variety of structures. No freely standing structures are possible, because these masks do not possess a mask blank. However, the main advantage of these masks is their low cost. These masks are therefore a cost effective alternative to manufacture simple structures. 

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