Morphology studies of the metal surfaces with enhanced absorption fabricated using interferometric femtosecond ablation

Recently, the enhancing of bulk metals optical absorption with focused femtosecond pulses was demonstrated. This absorption enhancement is caused by different nano- and micro-structures which are formed during laser ablation with ultrashort pulses. In this paper we study the evolution of the surface structures using interferometric ablation and compare it to normal fs-ablation. Previously we have shown that interferometric femtosecond ablation is an efficient method to fabricate absorbing metal surfaces. In this study we ablated large areas of hole-array structures with different pulse numbers in polished stainless steel and copper samples. The evolution of surface morphology and the depth of the holes for these structured surfaces are presented. In addition, the reflectance of laser generated surface structures are measured at the wavelength range of 200–2300 nm using a standard spectrophotometer.     

Laser-assisted generation of self-assembled microstructures on stainless steel

Utilising a Nd:YVO₄ laser (wavelength of 532 nm, pulse duration of 8 ns, repetition rate of 30 kHz) and a Nd:YAG laser (wavelength of 1064 nm, pulse duration of 7 ns, repetition rate of 25 kHz), it was found that during the pulsed laser ablation of metal targets, such as stainless steel, periodic nodular microstructures (microcones) with average periods ranging from ∼30 to ∼50 μm were formed. This period depends on the number of accumulated laser pulses and is independent of the laser wavelength. It was found that the formation of microcones could occur after as little as 1500 pulses/spot (a lower number than previously reported) are fired onto a target surface location at laser fluence of ∼12 J/cm², intensity of ∼1.5 GW/cm². The initial feedback mechanism required for the formation of structures is attributed to the hydrodynamic instabilities of the melt. In addition to this, it has been shown that the structures grow along the optical axis of the incoming laser radiation. We demonstrate that highly regular structures can be produced at various angles, something not satisfactorily presented on metallic surfaces previously. The affecting factors such as incident angle of the laser beam and the structures that can be formed when varying the manner in which the laser beam is scanned over the target surface have also been investigated.     

Drilling rate of five metals with picosecond laser pulses at 355, 532, and 1064 nm

Experimental results on picosecond laser processing of aluminum, nickel, stainless steel, molybdenum, and tungsten are described. Hole drilling is employed for comparative analysis of processing rates in an air environment. Drilling rates are measured over a wide range of laser fluences (0.05–20?J/cm²). Experiments with picosecond pulses at 355?nm are carried out for all five metals and in addition at 532?nm, and 1064?nm for nickel. A comparison of drilling rate with 6-ps and 6-ns pulses at 355?nm is performed. The dependence of drilling rate on laser fluence measured with picosecond pulses demonstrates two logarithmic regimes for all five metals. To determine the transition from one regime to another, a critical fluence is measured and correlated with the thermal properties of the metals. The logarithmic regime at high-fluence range with UV picosecond pulses is reported for the first time. The energy efficiency of material removal for the different regimes is evaluated. The results demonstrate that UV picosecond pulses can provide comparable quality and higher processing rate compared with literature data on ablation with near-IR femtosecond lasers. A significant contribution of two-photon absorption to the ablation process is suggested to explain high processing rate with powerful UV picosecond pulses.     

Ultrashort laser ablation of PMMA and intraocular lenses

The use of intraocular lenses (IOLs) is the most promising method to restore vision after cataract surgery. Several new materials, techniques, and patterns have been studied for forming and etching IOLs to improve their optical properties and reduce diffractive aberrations. This study is aimed at investigating the use of ultrashort laser pulses to ablate the surface of PMMA and intraocular lenses, and thus provide an alternative to conventional techniques. Ablation experiments were conducted using various polymer substrates (PMMA samples, hydrophobic acrylic IOL, yellow azo dye doped IOL, and hydrophilic acrylic IOL consist of 25% H₂O). The irradiation was performed using 100 fs pulses of 800 nm radiation from a regeneratively amplified Ti:sapphire laser system. We investigated the ablation efficiency and the phenomenology of the ablated patterns by probing the ablation depth using a profilometer. The surface modification was examined using a high resolution optical microscope (IOLs) or atomic force microscope—AFM (PMMA samples). It was found that different polymers exhibited different ablation characteristics, a result that we attribute to the differing optical properties of the materials. In particular, it was observed that the topography of the ablation tracks created on the hydrophilic intraocular lenses was smoother in comparison to those created on the PMMA and hydrophobic lens. The yellow doped hydrophobic intraocular lenses show higher ablation efficiency than undoped hydrophobic acrylic lenses.     

Combined continuum-atomistic modeling of ultrashort-pulsed laser irradiation of silicon

Ultrafast thermomechanical responses of silicon thin films due to ultrashort-pulsed laser irradiation were investigated using an atomic-level hybrid method coupling the molecular dynamics and the ultrafast two-step energy transport model. The dynamic reflectivity and absorption were considered, and the effects of laser fluence and pulse duration on the thermomechanical response were studied. It was found that both the carrier temperature and number density rapidly increase to their maximum while the lattice temperature rises at a much slower rate. The ultrafast laser heating could induce a strong stress wave in the film, with the maximum compressive and tensile stress occurring near the front and back surfaces, respectively. For laser pulses of the same duration, the higher the laser fluence is, the higher the carrier temperature and density and lattice temperature are induced. For the same laser fluence, a longer pulse generally produces lower carrier density and temperatures and weaker stress shock strength. However, for the fluence of 0.2 J/cm², the lowest lattice temperature was simulated for a 100-fs pulse compared to the 1-ps and 5-ps pulses, due to the increase of reflectivity by high carrier density. It is also shown that the optical properties as functions of lattice temperature usually employed are not suited for modeling ultrafast laser interactions with silicon materials.     

Cumulative and continuous laser vaporization synthesis of single wall carbon nanotubes and nanohorns

The conditions for the scaled synthesis of single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) and single wall carbon nanohorns (SWNHs) by laser vaporization at high temperatures are investigated and compared using in situ diagnostics. An industrial Nd:YAG laser (600 W, 1–500 Hz repetition rate) with tunable pulse widths (0.5–50 ms) is utilized to explore conditions for high-yield production. High-speed videography (50000 frames/s) of the laser plume and pyrometry of the target surface are correlated with ex situ high resolution transmission electron microscopy analysis of the products for pure carbon targets and carbon/catalyst targets to understand the effects of the processing conditions on the resulting nanostructures. Carbon is shown to self-assemble into single-wall nanohorn structures at rates of ∼1 nm/ms, which is comparable to the catalyst-assisted SWNT growth rates. Two regimes of laser ablation, cumulative ablation by multiple pulses and continuous ablation by individual pulses, were explored. Cumulative ablation with spatially overlapping 0.5-ms pulses is favorable for the high yield and production rate of SWNTs at ∼6 g/h while continuous ablation by individual long laser pulses (∼20 ms) at high temperatures results in the highest yield of SWNHs at ∼10 g/h. Adjustment of the laser pulse width is shown to control SWNH morphology.     

Short-pulse UV laser ablation of solid and liquid metals: indium

2 to 2.5 mJ/cm² when a 0.5 ps pulse is used instead of a 15 ns laser pulse. Measurements on liquid indium show a different behavior. With 15 ns laser pulses the threshold fluence is lowered by a factor of ∼3 from 100 mJ/cm² for solid indium to 30 mJ/cm² for liquid indium. In contrast, measurements with 0.5 ps laser pulses do not show any change in the ablation threshold and are independent of the phase of the metal at 2.5 mJ/cm². This behavior could be explained by thermal diffusion and heat conduction during the laser pulse and demonstrates in an independent way the energy lost into the material when long laser pulses are applied. Time-of-flight measurements to investigate the underlying ablation mechanism show thermal behavior of the ablated indium atoms for both ps and ns ablation and can be fitted to Maxwell-Boltzmann distributions. Received: 2 December 1996/Accepted: 11 December 1996     

High-energy picosecond Nd:YVO4 slab amplifier for OPCPA pumping

We demonstrate 12-ps pulses with up to 0.6-mJ pulse energy at repetition rates of 50 kHz and 100 kHz from a Nd:YVO₄ slab amplifier built in a simple four-pass configuration. Excellent noise performance with pulse energy fluctuations below 0.8% rms has been achieved by using 10-μJ seed pulses from a highly stable industrial laser system and moderate gain (30–46) in the slab amplifier.     

High resolution patterning of sapphire by F<Subscript>2</Subscript>-laser ablation

The ablation behavior of single crystalline sapphire with nanosecond laser pulses at 157 nm wavelength is investigated. Ablation rates of about 10 to 100 nm/pulse are obtained at fluences ranging from 1 to 9 J/cm². At moderate fluences, incubation behavior is observed, i.e. ablation starts after material modification by a number of laser pulses. The ablation can be utilized to fabricate sapphire micro-optics. The capability of creating lenses or gratings on the tip of sapphire fibers is demonstrated. Multilevel diffractive optical elements and high resolution gratings with 1 μm period are fabricated on planar sapphire substrates.     

Time-resolved investigations of plasma and melt ejections in?metals by pump-probe shadowgrpahy

Ablation of bulk metals (Al, Cu) has been investigated in situ by means of high-resolution pump-probe photography using pump laser radiation of pulse duration t _p=80 fs, at wavelength of 820 nm. Depending on material-specific parameters, qualitatively different ablation phenomena have been observed. Structural analysis by electron and optical microscopies reveals rosette-like surface structures showing the morphology of the ablated regions. The temporal development of the ablation dynamics can be conditionally categorized into different characteristic time regions. Particularly, laser induced melt injection has been observed in the time range of 700 ns to 1.1 μs after the initial laser-metal interaction.     

Selective ablation of thin SiO<Subscript>2</Subscript> layers on silicon substrates by femto- and picosecond laser pulses

The selective ablation of thin (∼100 nm) SiO₂ layers from silicon wafers has been investigated by applying ultra-short laser pulses at a wavelength of 800 nm with pulse durations in the range from 50 to 2000 fs. We found a strong, monotonic decrease of the laser fluence needed for complete ablation of the dielectric layer with decreasing pulse duration. The threshold fluence for 100% ablation probability decreased from 750 mJ/cm² at 2 ps to 480 mJ/cm² at 50 fs. Significant corruption of the opened Si surface has been observed above ∼1200 mJ/cm², independent of pulse duration. By a detailed analysis of the experimental series the values for melting and breaking thresholds are obtained; the physical mechanisms responsible for the significant dependence on the laser pulse duration are discussed.     

Ablation and analysis of small cell populations and single cells by consecutive laser pulses

Laser ablation of single cells through a sharpened optical fiber is used for the detection of metabolites by laser ablation electrospray ionization (LAESI) mass spectrometry (MS). Ablation of the same Allium cepa epidermal cell by consecutive pulses indicates the rupture of the cell wall by the second shot. Intracellular sucrose heterogeneity is detected by subsequent laser pulses pointing to rupturing the vacuolar membrane by the third exposure. Ion production by bursts of laser pulses shows that the drying of ruptured A. cepa cells occurs in ∼50 s at low pulse rates (10 pulses/s bursts) and significantly faster at high pulse rates (100 pulses/s bursts). These results point to the competing role of cytoplasm ejection and evaporative drying in diminishing the LAESI-MS signal in ∼50 s or 100 laser pulses, whichever occurs first.     

Effects of laser operating parameters on metals micromachining with ultrafast lasers

180 femtoseconds (1 kHz) and 10 picoseconds (1-50 kHz) ultrafast laser micro-structuring of the metals Ti alloy, Al and Cu have been studied for the purpose of industrial application. The effects of some key laser operating parameters were investigated. The evolution of surface morphology revealed that laser pulses overlap in a range around the spatial FWHM can help to achieve optimal residual surface roughness. While observed ablation rate (unit: μm³ per pulse) changed dramatically with repetition rate due to the combined effects of plasma absorption, residual thermal energy and phase transition, higher throughput can be achieved with higher repetition rate. This study also indicated that residual surface roughness is almost independent of repetition rate at 10 ps temporal pulse length. The ablation depth is approximately proportional to the number of overscan; however, machining accuracy deteriorates, especially for femtosecond laser processing and metals with low thermal conductivity and short electron-phonon coupling time.     

Single-pulse drilling study on Au,Al and Ti alloy by using a picosecond laser

Picosecond laser single pulse ablation of Au, Al and Ti alloy (Ti6Al4V) was experimentally investigated with a laser pulse width of 10 ps at a wavelength of 1064 nm for potential industrial micromachining applications. The diameters, depths and morphologies of the drilled craters were studied. Two novel phenomena were found: as hole diameters decreased with fluence, a change of slope of the trend line indicated a change in ablation mechanism for Al and Ti alloy, metallic materials with short electron-phonon coupling times (<10 ps), while Au showed no such transition: an isolated island structure was also observed on Au due to significant melt expulsion. A one-dimensional two-temperature model has been used to discriminate different ablation phenomena. It is shown that metallic materials with different electron–phonon coupling constant have different ablation characteristics in the ps regime. This study could be very helpful for metallic material micromachining with high repetition rate ps lasers pulses which indicates that high throughput may be achieved as well as good machining quality.     

InGaAs diode laser system generating pulses of 580 fs duration and 366 W peak power

This paper reports the generation of fs light pulses by a passively mode-locked InGaAs master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) system. The laser system generates chirped pulses with 6.2 ps duration, a center wavelength of 922 nm and 4 GHz repetition rate. Pulse compression by an external grating compressor reduces the pulse duration to 580 fs. The average power of the compressed pulses of 851 mW corresponds to a peak power of 366 W.     

Multi-stage pulse compression by use of cascaded quadratic nonlinearity

In this paper, the multi-stage compression of picosecond pulses by cascaded quadratic nonlinearity is studied theoretically, and the dependence of pulse compression on phase-mismatch, laser intensity, and crystal characteristics has been discussed in detail. We demonstrate that the multi-stage pulse compression is much more efficient than the single-stage with a same total crystal length. Pulses as short as ∼150 fs can be generated by compressing 30-ps initial pulses in a two-stage configuration under the realistic crystal and laser conditions, and shorter pulses of ∼30 fs may be obtained by three-stage compression. Pulse compression performances with BiBO and BBO crystals are compared and discussed finally.     

Plasma-mediated ablation of brain tissue with picosecond laser pulses

Plasma-mediated ablations of brain tissue have been performed using picosecond laser pulses obtained from a Nd:YLF oscillator/regenerative amplifier system. The laser pulses had a pulse duration of 35 ps at a wavelength of 1.053 µm. The pulse energy varied from 90 µJ to 550 µJ at a repetition rate of 400 Hz. The energy density at the ablation threshold was measured to be 20 J/cm². Comparisons have been made to 19 ps laser pulses at 1.68 µm and 2.92 µm from an OPG/OPA system and to microsecond pulse trains at 2.94 µm from a free running Er:YAG laser. Light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy were performed to judge the depth and the quality of the ablated cavities. No thermal damage was induced by either of the picosecond laser systems. The Er:YAG laser, on the other hand, showed 20 µm wide lateral damage zones due to the longer pulse durations and the higher pulse energies.     

Table-top 50-W laser system for ultra-fast laser ablation

We have built a mode-locked Nd:YVO₄ laser with a very long resonator which produces an average power of 50 W in 13-ps pulses at 1064 nm and was designed for applications in micro-machining, the deposition of optical thin films, and the growth of nano-clusters in the laser-ablated plumes. By operating the laser at very low mode-locking repetition rates (1.5 MHz, 2.6 MHz, and 4.1 MHz), high pulse power is available in a near diffraction limited beam, allowing focused intensities to exceed 10¹² W/cm² and permitting efficient evaporation of difficult materials such as Si. The high power also allows conversion into the second harmonic at 532 nm with an efficiency exceeding 80%. Measurements of the ablation mass in experiments with metals show a 30–100 times increase in the ablation rate compared to the conventional low-repetition-rate ns-range lasers. PACS 79.20.Ds; 81.15.Fg; 81.16.Mk; 42.62.Cf     

Effects of electron relaxation on multiple harmonic generation from metal surfaces with femtosecond laser pulses

Calculations are presented for the first four (odd and even) harmonics of an 800 nm laser from a gold surface, with pulse widths ranging from 100 down to 14 fs. For peak laser intensities above 1 GW/cm² the harmonics are enhanced because of a partial depletion of the initial electron states. At 10¹¹ W/cm² of peak laser intensity the calculated conversion efficiency for 2nd-harmonic generation is 3 × 10⁻⁹, while for the 5th-harmonic it is 10⁻¹⁰. The generated harmonic pulses are broadened and delayed relative to the laser pulse because of the finite relaxation times of the excited electronic states. The finite electron relaxation times cause also the broadening of the autocorrelations of the laser pulses obtained from surface harmonic generation by two time-delayed identical pulses. Comparison with recent experimental results shows that the response time of an autocorrelator using nonlinear optical processes in a gold surface is shorter than the electron relaxation times. This seems to indicate that for laser pulses shorter than ∼30 fs, the fast nonresonant channel for multiphoton excitation via continuum-continuum transitions in metals becomes important as the resonant channel becomes slow (relative to the laser pulse) and less efficient.     

High-peak power multi-wavelength picosecond pulses generated from a BaWO4 Raman-seeded optical parametric amplifier

We report the generation of high-peak power multi-wavelength picosecond laser pulses using optical parametric amplification (OPA) in BBO seeded with pulses generated in a 5-mm length BaWO₄ crystal by stimulated Raman scattering of 18-ps laser pulses at 532 nm. The maximum output energy of the amplified first-Stokes component at 559.7 nm was about 1.76 mJ. The corresponding maximum peak power, pulse duration and spectral line width were measured to be 117.3 MW, 15 ps and 18.0 cm⁻¹, respectively. The multi-wavelength picosecond laser pulses were in the visible and near infrared ranges. Using this Raman-seeded OPA technique, the beam quality of the stimulated Raman scattering pulses can be improved.