Elloian, Jeffrey, Jeffrey Sherman, Tiago Costa, Chen Shi, and Kenneth Shepard. “Ablation of piezoelectric polyvinylidene fluoride with a 193 nm excimer laser.” Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A: Vacuum, Surfaces, and Films 38, no. 3 (2020): 033202.

The unique flexible and piezoelectric properties of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) films would allow for new appli-cations for integrated bioelectronic devices. The use of these films has been precluded by the difficulty in machiningit into small, discrete features without damaging the properties of the material. The etching of piezoelectric PVDF bymeans of a 193 nm excimer laser is explored and characterized. Etch rates are shown for common laser fluence values,along with images of the quality of the cuts to provide the reader with an understanding of the compromise betweenetch rate and edge roughness.