Thermo-Mechanical Analysis of Blister Formation on a Rigid Substrate in Blister-Actuated Laser-Induced Forward Transfer

This article presents an analytic model of a glass-interface-polyimide structure for predicting the blister formation during blister-actuated, laser-induced forward transfer. In order to investigate the dynamic process of heating and vaporizing of polymer in laser/matter interaction and crack propagation of the glass/polymer interface in blister expansion, a discrete quasi-static analysis method is proposed. In the frame of fracture mechanics, the energy release rate (ERR) is calculated and introduced to analyze interfacial crack propagation of the glass/polymer interface. In addition, the blister expansion and formation are also computed based on a finite-element model, and the analytical predictions are shown to be in good agreement with the simulated results. The results show that the blister height and the crack length are sensitive to laser fluence. A higher laser fluence is much easier to induce a higher blister height. The crack will propagate as the laser fluence is larger than the critical laser fluence.