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Basic Physics of Femtosecond Laser Ablation

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Laser-Surface Interactions for New Materials Production

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Materials Science ((SSMATERIALS,volume 130))

Summary

Laser ablation being the basic process for many prominent applications of lasers in present day high technology, medicine, and other fields, its basic physics is reviewed in this chapter. In order to distinguish the fundamental, laser–material interaction from the secondary effects, we concentrate on ultrashort laser pulses ( ≈ 100 fs duration) at comparably low intensities, below the commonly indicated threshold for massive material removal. It is shown that – for these conditions – the principal light/matter coupling occurs via multiphoton excitation of electrons into the conduction band or the vacuum. The resulting perturbation of the target lattice results in the emission of positive particles, from atomic ions to larger clusters of more than ten atoms. With the increasing number of incident pulses, the light/material coupling is facilitated by the accumulation of transient crystal defects resulting from particle removal. On the other hand, the lattice destabilization, upon excitation and ablation, relaxes via self-organized formation of regular nanostructures at the irradiated area. The strong influence of laser polarization on the structural order is still not really understood.

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Acknowledgements

The author greatly appreciates the fruitful and congenial collaboration with Florenta Costache, Olga Varlamova, Markus Ratzke, and Michael Bestehorn. Profitable discussion and interaction within the Cottbus JointLab is greatly appreciated. This work was, in part, supported by a special grant from the Land of Brandenburg.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Brandenburgische Technische Universität, BTU Cottbus and Cottbus JointLab, Universitätsstrasse 1, 03046, Cottbus, Germany

    Juergen Reif

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  1. Juergen Reif
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Correspondence to Juergen Reif .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dipto. Fisica , Universita di Trento, Via Sommarive 14, Povo, 38050, Italy

    Antonio Miotello

  2. Dipto. Ingegneria Nucleare, Politecnico di Milano, Via Ponzio 34-3, Milano, 20133, Italy

    Paolo M. Ossi

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Reif, J. (2010). Basic Physics of Femtosecond Laser Ablation. In: Miotello, A., Ossi, P. (eds) Laser-Surface Interactions for New Materials Production. Springer Series in Materials Science, vol 130. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03307-0_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03307-0_2

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