Ultraviolet femtosecond and nanosecond laser ablation of silicon: ablation efficiency and laser-induced plasma expansion

Femtosecond laser ablation of silicon in air was studied and compared with nanosecond laser ablation at ultraviolet wavelength (266 nm). Laser ablation efficiency was studied by measuring crater depth as a function of pulse number. For the same number of laser pulses, the fs-ablated crater was about two times deeper than the ns-crater. The temperature and electron number density of the pulsed laser-induced plasma were determined from spectroscopic measurements. The electron number density and temperature of fs-pulse plasmas decreased faster than ns-pulse plasmas due to different energy deposition mechanisms. Images of the laser-induced plasma were obtained with femtosecond time-resolved laser shadowgraph imaging. Plasma expansion in both the perpendicular and the lateral directions to the laser beam were compared for femtosecond and nanosecond laser ablation

Expansion of radiative cooling of the laser induced plasma

To study the expansion and cooling process of the laser induced plasma generated by nanosecond pulsed laser ablation, experiments have been conducted which measure the position of the external shockwaves and the temperature of the vapor plumes. The positions of external shockwaves were determined by a femtosecond laser time-resolved imaging system. Vapor plume temperature was determined from spectroscopic measurements of the plasma emission lines. A model which considers the mass, momentum, and energy conservation of the region affected by the laser energy was developed. It shows good agreement to the experimental data

Metal particles produced by laser ablation for ICP-MSmeasurements

Pulsed laser ablation (266nm) was used to generate metal particles of Zn and Al alloys using femtosecond (150 fs) and nanosecond (4 ns) laser pulses with identical fluences of 50 J cm{sup -2}. Characterization of particles and correlation with Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS) performance was investigated. Particles produced by nanosecond laser ablation were mainly primary particles with irregular shape and hard agglomerates (without internal voids). Particles produced by femtosecond laser ablation consisted of spherical primary particles and soft agglomerates formed from numerous small particles. Examination of the craters by white light interferometric microscopy showed that there is a rim of material surrounding the craters formed after nanosecond laser ablation. The determination of the crater volume by white light interferometric microscopy, considering the rim of material surrounding ablation craters, revealed that the volume ratio (fs/ns) of the craters on the selected samples was approximately 9 (Zn), 7 (NIST627 alloy) and 5 (NIST1711 alloy) times more ablated mass with femtosecond pulsed ablation compared to nanosecond pulsed ablation. In addition, an increase of Al concentration from 0 to 5% in Zn base alloys caused a large increase in the diameter of the particles, up to 65% while using nanosecond laser pulses. When the ablated particles were carried in argon into an ICP-MS, the Zn and Al signals intensities were greater by factors of {approx} 50 and {approx} 12 for fs vs. ns ablation. Femtosecond pulsed ablation also reduced temporal fluctuations in the {sup 66}Zn transient signal by a factor of ten compared to nanosecond laser pulses