Laser ablation printing

A system comprising:

• a printing substrate;
• a printing material;
• a laser;
• a charging electrode;
• a plurality of electrostatic deflectors comprising a first electrostatic deflector and a second electrostatic deflector;
• one or more processors;
• and
• a non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon program instructions that, upon execution by the one or more processors, cause performance of a set of operations comprising:
• determining an image to be printed on the printing substrate;
• causing the laser to ablate the printing material, thereby expelling a plurality of ablated printing material particles from a surface of the printing material;
• causing the charging electrode to electrically charge the ablated printing material particles;
• and
• causing the plurality of electrostatic deflectors to accelerate the electrically charged ablated printing material particles toward the printing substrate so that the accelerated particles are deposited on the printing substrate in a pattern that corresponds to the determined image, wherein causing the plurality of electrostatic deflectors to accelerate the electrically charged ablated printing material particles comprises (i) causing the first electrostatic deflector to deflect the electrically charged ablated printing material particles along a first axis and (ii) causing the second electrostatic deflector to deflect the electrically charged ablated printing material particles along a second axis orthogonal to the first axis.

A method comprising:

• receiving a digital image comprising a plurality of pixels;
• and
• for one or more pixels of the plurality of pixels, performing a laser-ablation printing process comprising:
• determining a color value of the one or more pixels;
• based on the determined color value of the one or more pixels, laser-ablating a particular printing material of a plurality of printing materials, thereby expelling a plurality of ablated printing material particles from a surface of the particular printing material;
• electrically charging the ablated printing material particles;
• and
• causing a plurality of electrostatic deflectors, including a first electrostatic deflector and a second electrostatic deflector, to accelerate the electrically charged ablated printing material particles toward one or more locations on a printing substrate, wherein the one or more locations on the printing substrate are based on a position of the one or more pixels in the digital image, and wherein causing the plurality of electrostatic deflectors to accelerate the electrically charged ablated printing material particles comprises (i) causing the first electrostatic deflector to deflect the electrically charged ablated printing material particles along a first axis and (ii) causing the second electrostatic deflector to deflect the electrically charged ablated printing material particles along a second axis orthogonal to the first axis.