Concepedia

Ablation of metals by ultrashort laser pulses

Stefan Nolte, C. Momma, H. Jacobs, Andreas Tünnermann, Boris N. Chichkov, B. Wellegehausen, H. Welling

Journal of the Optical Society of America B · 1997 · 1.1K citations · 23 references

TL;DR

Ablation of metal targets by Ti:sapphire laser radiation is studied. The study presents a simple theoretical model to qualitatively describe the experimental ablation results. The ablation depth per pulse was measured across pulse durations of 150 fs–30 ps and fluences of 0.1–10 J cm⁻², and a simple theoretical model was introduced to explain the observations. Two distinct ablation regimes were identified, each showing a logarithmic dependence of ablation depth per pulse on laser fluence.

Abstract

Ablation of metal targets by Ti:sapphire laser radiation is studied. The ablation depth per pulse is measured for laser pulse durations between 150 fs and 30 ps and fluences ranging from the ablation threshold ∼0.1 J/cm2 up to 10 J/cm2. Two different ablation regimes are observed for the first time. In both cases the ablation depth per pulse depends logarithmically on the laser fluence. A simple theoretical model for a qualitative description of the experimental results is presented.