Enhancing precision in fs-laser material processing by simultaneous spatial and temporal focusing

In recent years, femtosecond (fs)-lasers have evolved into a versatile tool for high precision micromachining of transparent materials because nonlinear absorption in the focus can result in refractive index modifications or material disruptions. However, when high pulse energies or low numerical ap...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Light, science & applications science & applications, 2014-05, Vol.3 (5), p.e169-e169
Main Authors: Kammel, Robert, Ackermann, Roland, Thomas, Jens, Götte, Jörg, Skupin, Stefan, Tünnermann, Andreas, Nolte, Stefan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/624/1075
639/624/1075/1080
639/624/1111/55
639/624/400/385
Applied and Technical Physics
Atomic
Broadband
Classical and Continuum Physics
Confining
Disruption
Focal plane
Focusing
Lasers
Molecular
Nonlinearity
Optical and Plasma Physics
Optical Devices
Optics
original-article
Photonics
Physics
Physics and Astronomy
Plasma Physics
Pulse propagation
Side effects
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Summary:In recent years, femtosecond (fs)-lasers have evolved into a versatile tool for high precision micromachining of transparent materials because nonlinear absorption in the focus can result in refractive index modifications or material disruptions. However, when high pulse energies or low numerical apertures are required, nonlinear side effects such as self-focusing, filamentation or white light generation can decrease the modification quality. In this paper, we apply simultaneous spatial and temporal focusing (SSTF) to overcome these limitations. The main advantage of SSTF is that the ultrashort pulse is only formed at the focal plane, thereby confining the intensity distribution strongly to the focal volume and suppressing detrimental nonlinear side effects. Thus, we investigate the optical breakdown within a water cell by pump-probe shadowgraphy, comparing conventional focusing and SSTF under equivalent focusing conditions. The plasma formation is well confined for low pulse energies
ISSN:2047-7538
2095-5545
2047-7538
DOI:10.1038/lsa.2014.50