Millijoule femtosecond micro-Bessel beams for ultra-high aspect ratio machining.

We report on a functional experimental design for Bessel beam generation capable of handling high-energy ultrashort pulses (up to 1.2 mJ per pulse of 50 fs duration). This allows us to deliver intensities exceeding the breakdown threshold for air or any dielectric along controlled micro-filaments with lengths exceeding 4 mm. It represents an unprecedented upscaling in comparison to recent femtosecond Bessel beam micromachining experiments. We produce void microchannels through glass substrates to demonstrate that aspect ratios exceeding 1200∶1 can be achieved by using single high-intensity pulses. This demonstration must lead to new methodologies for deep-drilling and high-speed cutting applications.

[1]  Craig B. Arnold,et al.  Bessel and annular beams for materials processing , 2012 .

[2]  Michael Schmidt,et al.  Application of Bessel beams for ultrafast laser volume structuring of non transparent media , 2010 .

[3]  Matthias P. L. Sentis,et al.  Long-wavelength multiphoton ionization inside band-gap solids , 2013 .

[4]  Takashi Inoue,et al.  The characteristics of laser micro drilling using a Bessel beam , 2006 .

[5]  Réal Tremblay,et al.  Influence of the divergence of a laser beam on the axial intensity distribution of an axicon , 1980 .

[6]  B. Chimier,et al.  Toward determinism in surface damaging of dielectrics using few-cycle laser pulses , 2010 .

[7]  D. Faccio,et al.  Nonlinear light-matter interaction with femtosecond high-angle Bessel beams , 2012 .

[8]  O. Uteza,et al.  Self-limited underdense microplasmas in bulk silicon induced by ultrashort laser pulses , 2014 .

[9]  Matthias P. L. Sentis,et al.  Non-linear absorption of 1.3-μm wavelength femtosecond laser pulses focused inside semiconductors: Finite difference time domain-two temperature model combined computational study , 2011 .

[10]  A. Couairon,et al.  Femtosecond filamentation in transparent media , 2007 .

[11]  Philippe Delaporte,et al.  Limitations to laser machining of silicon using femtosecond micro-Bessel beams in the infrared , 2015 .

[12]  Gerard Mourou,et al.  Optics at critical intensity: applications to nanomorphing. , 2004, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[13]  Jean-Claude Diels,et al.  Ultrashort Laser Pulse Phenomena: Fundamentals, Techniques, and Applications on a Femtosecond Time Scale , 1996 .

[14]  G. Mourou,et al.  A study of the deterministic character of optical damage by femtosecond laser pulses and applications to nanomachining , 2003 .

[15]  T. A. Wiggins,et al.  Production and uses of diffractionless beams , 1991 .

[16]  K. Miura,et al.  Writing waveguides in glass with a femtosecond laser. , 1996, Optics letters.

[17]  Rajarshi Roy,et al.  Generation of nondiffracting Bessel beams by use of a spatial light modulator. , 2003, Optics letters.

[18]  E. Dianov,et al.  Delocalization of femtosecond radiation in silicon. , 2012, Optics letters.

[19]  P. Corkum,et al.  Self-controlled formation of microlenses by optical breakdown inside wide-band-gap materials , 2008 .

[20]  E. Mazur,et al.  Femtosecond laser micromachining in transparent materials , 2008 .

[21]  Razvan Stoian,et al.  Single-shot high aspect ratio bulk nanostructuring of fused silica using chirp- controlled ultrafast laser Bessel beams , 2014 .

[22]  Nicolas Sandeau,et al.  Bessel-like photonic nanojets from core-shell sub-wavelength spheres. , 2014, Optics letters.

[23]  Chin-Kai Chang,et al.  Laser ablation of silicon using a Bessel-like beam generated by a subwavelength annular aperture structure. , 2011, Applied optics.

[24]  Maxime Jacquot,et al.  High aspect ratio nanochannel machining using single shot femtosecond Bessel beams , 2010 .

[25]  Jie Zhang,et al.  Tightly focused femtosecond laser pulse in air: from filamentation to breakdown. , 2010, Optics express.

[26]  K. Y. Kim,et al.  Measurement of the superluminal group velocity of an ultrashort Bessel beam pulse. , 2002, Physical review letters.

[27]  Miceli,et al.  Diffraction-free beams. , 1987, Physical review letters.