Morphology of nanoscale structures on fused silica surfaces from interaction with temporally tailored femtosecond pulses

Laser control of two basic ionization processes on fused silica, i.e., multiphoton ionization and avalanche ionization, with temporally asymmetric pulse envelopes is investigated. Control leads to different final electron densities/energies as the direct temporal intensity profile and the time inverted intensity profile address the two ionization processes in a different fashion. This results in observed different thresholds for material modification on the surface as well as in reproducible lateral structures being an order of magnitude below the diffraction limit (down and below 100 nm at a numerical aperture of 0.5). In this contribution, the morphology of the resulting structures is discussed.

[1]  A. Assion,et al.  Compact, robust, and flexible setup for femtosecond pulse shaping , 2003 .

[2]  Gerard Mourou,et al.  SHORT-PULSE LASER DAMAGE IN TRANSPARENT MATERIALS AS A FUNCTION OF PULSE DURATION , 1999 .

[3]  T. Baumert,et al.  Control of ionization processes in high band gap materials via tailored femtosecond pulses. , 2007, Optics express.

[4]  G. Mourou,et al.  Femtosecond Optical Breakdown in Dielectrics , 1998 .

[5]  B. Rethfeld,et al.  Unified model for the free-electron avalanche in laser-irradiated dielectrics. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[6]  Perry,et al.  Laser-induced damage in dielectrics with nanosecond to subpicosecond pulses. , 1995, Physical review letters.

[7]  Thomas Baumert,et al.  Zeptosecond precision pulse shaping. , 2011, Optics express.

[8]  Alexander Horn,et al.  Temporal femtosecond pulse tailoring for nanoscale laser processing of wide-bandgap materials , 2010, OPTO.

[9]  Guillaume Petite,et al.  Dynamics of femtosecond laser interactions with dielectrics , 2004 .

[10]  Arie Zigler,et al.  Reduction of damage threshold in dielectric materials induced by negatively chirped laser pulses , 2005 .

[11]  François Courvoisier,et al.  Morphology study of femtosecond laser nano-structured borosilicate glass using atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy , 2010 .

[12]  T. Baumert,et al.  Robust photon locking. , 2009, Physical review letters.

[13]  t. baumert.  Femtosecond laser-induced-breakdown spectrometry for Ca 2 + analysis of biological samples with high spatial resolution , 2003 .

[14]  Razvan Stoian,et al.  Dynamic temporal pulse shaping in advanced ultrafast laser material processing , 2003 .

[15]  Albert Stolow,et al.  Focusing of light following a 4- f pulse shaper: Considerations for quantum control , 2008 .

[16]  Klaus Sokolowski-Tinten,et al.  Multiphoton ionization in dielectrics: comparison of circular and linear polarization. , 2006 .

[17]  Razvan Stoian,et al.  Temporal Pulse Tailoring in Ultrafast Laser Manufacturing Technologies , 2010 .

[18]  Alexander Horn,et al.  Control of Ionization Processes in High Band Gap Materials , 2009 .

[19]  A. Weiner.  Femtosecond pulse shaping using spatial light modulators , 2000 .

[20]  Zbigniew Sikorski,et al.  Single-pulse ultrafast-laser machining of high aspect nano-holes at the surface of SiO2. , 2008, Optics express.

[21]  Arnaud Couairon,et al.  Filamentation and damage in fused silica induced by tightly focused femtosecond laser pulses , 2005 .

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

[23]  Peter-Monnik Weg,et al.  Mechanisms of femtosecond laser nanosurgery of cells and tissues , 2005 .

[24]  Andreas Kaiser,et al.  Microscopic processes in dielectrics under irradiation by subpicosecond laser pulses , 2000 .

[25]  B. Rethfeld,et al.  Material processing of dielectrics with temporally asymmetric shaped femtosecond laser pulses on the nanometer scale , 2008 .

[26]  Andrew M. Weiner,et al.  Ultrafast double-pulse ablation of fused silica , 2005 .

[27]  A. Assion,et al.  Femtosecond laser-induced-breakdown spectrometry for Ca2+ analysis of biological samples with high spatial resolution , 2003 .

[28]  A. Vogel,et al.  Mechanisms of femtosecond laser nanosurgery of cells and tissues , 2005 .

[29]  T. Baumert,et al.  Plasma dynamics of water breakdown at a water surface induced by femtosecond laser pulses , 2006 .

[30]  T. Baumert,et al.  Strong-field control landscapes of coherent electronic excitation , 2008 .