## 3 Results and Discussion
### Ejection-Based Transfer Mechanism  
The phenomenon of a ring structure through an artificially introduced gap between the acceptor and donor substrate was previously reported by us [31]. It was not explicitly stated that the material deposition occurs for acceptor-donor substrate distances beyond the maximum polyimide expansion. However, this secondary transfer mechanism is particularly relevant for large scale material deposition, since the non-zero expansion of the polyimide after relaxation induces local distances between the donor and acceptor substrates. To solely investigate the effect of different acceptor-donor substrate distances, a spacer (200 \(\upmu\)m thickness) was attached on one side of an acceptor substrate (Figure S3) and constant lasing parameters were used (160 mW and 10 ms). This setup enabled the simultaneous investigation of an acceptor-donor substrate distance, ranging from 0 \(\upmu\)m to 200 \(\upmu\)m. The minute amount of deposited material made it impossible to detect the material deposition precisely through VSI. Thus, only Fluo measurements could be analyzed. Not only was an exponential decrease in the mean and line spot intensity observed (Figure 3a), but the occurrence of a \(\approx\)1.5-2 orders of magnitude weaker ring structure was detected (Figure 3b). This ring structure surrounds and increases its radius from the main spot deposition with an increasing distance between the acceptor and donor substrates until the main spot deposition vanishes. It is evident that a secondary transfer mechanism exists. Figure 2: Time progression of the material deposition and maximum polyimide surface expansion with varying lasing powers: the material deposition (spot width (**a,b**) and volume (**c**)) time progression over 20 ms lasing duration with four different lasing powers of a Rhodamine 150 donor substrate is shown. An example of an evaluated Fluo and VSI image is appended in Figure S2. The maximum polyimide surface expansion (**d**) was measured via the high-speed imaging of a donor substrate without a polymer coating. The material deposition occurs for acceptor-donor substrate distances above 40 um (maximum polyimide surface expansion of the used lasing parameters; Figure 2). Therefore, the secondary effect is most likely ejection based. Additionally, the polyimide expansion in the normal direction of its own surface (at a given time) implies that the laser-induced temperature gradient acts as a force into that direction. With this constraint, it can be assumed that in the first order, the material ejection is in the normal direction of the polyimide expansion, which is similar to the secondary effect of the blister-actuated LIFT [32]. Based on this assumption, the transformation \(\theta(r,t)\) can be stated Equation (15), which maps the ejection from the donor onto the acceptor substrate (Figure 3c). \[\theta(r,t)\big{|}_{z_{0}}=r+\left.\Delta r(r,t)\right|_{z_{0}}=r+(z_{0}-z(r,t ))\tan(\alpha(r,t))\quad\text{with }z_{0}\geq z(r,t) \tag{15}\]  
To analyze the secondary order effect and no superposition with the contact-based material deposition, the distance \(z_{0}\) between the acceptor and donor has to be larger than the polyimide expansion \(z(r,t)\). Since the polyimide showed a bell-shaped expansion and  
Figure 3: Ejection-based material deposition: Material deposition from a Rhodamine 150 donor substrate with 160 mW and 10 ms lasing power and duration over an acceptor–donor substrate distance of up to 130 μm (**a**). These depositions show an exponential decrease in the fluorescence mean and line spot intensity with an increasing distance between acceptor and donor substrates. Specifically, a decrease from \(\approx\)\(6\cdot 10^{3}\) [a.u.] to \(\approx\)\(5\cdot 10^{1}\) [a.u.] and from \(\approx\)\(2.8\cdot 10^{4}\) [a.u.] to \(\approx\)\(7\cdot 10^{1}\) [a.u.] for the mean and peak spot intensity is observed. In addition, a 1.5–2 magnitudes weaker ring structure is observed (**b**), which increases its radius with an increasing acceptor–donor substrate distance.