The technique for depositing a thin film of metal onto glass involves sandwiching a metal shim or foil between two pieces of glass, and using a fibre laser to etch the metal.
The laser blasting process causes microscopic molten metal droplets to splash up and adhere to the surface of the glass, rather than being plasma as some may assume.
Silver was the best metal to test the process on, with copper working but not being as conductive as hoped, possibly requiring electroplating.
This technique could be used for creating artistic printed circuit boards, however, more testing is required to establish whether the effort of using this method is worthwhile, particularly when compared to simply gluing copper foil to a glass substrate.
It is recommended that an inert atmosphere would improve the chances of this process working.
Also, whilst it works with pure metals, alloys can cause demixing on the glass surface.
As such, “printing” a large area and then etching could be a more reliable technique than trying to deposit patterns directly.
