Sub-microdrilling with ultrafast pulse laser interference

A novel sub-microdrilling technique utilising the phenomenon of ultrafast pulse laser interference is reported. This technique overcomes the feature size limit of conventional laser micromachining. The method of first interfering with the laser light, and then using the central bright fringe of the interfered beam to machine has been proven to effectively reduce the effective ablation spot size and, subsequently, to reduce the size of the drilled features. Preliminary results show a 300% reduction in drilled feature size with the interfered laser beam compared with the conventional non-interfered laser beam. 300 nm holes were successfully drilled on a 1000 Å thick Gold film using the interfered laser beam compared to 1 m holes ablated using the conventional non-interfered laser beam at the same pulse energy. PACS 42.62.Cf; 42.15.Eq; 42.25.Hz