Small glass particle cloud generation induced by laser ablation

Burst of small fragments of glass has been evidenced in the present study, when ground glass surface is laser ablated. Production of macro particles by laser ablation is an inherent characteristic of ground glass, and no similar phenomena have been observed in case of metal or polymer ablation. In this case, no additional metal coating has been made to further enhance absorption of laser pulse. Pulse laser shadowgraph has been taken to study the details of the phenomena in air and in vacuum. At least in vacuum, particle burst is found almost normal to the surface. By using ns-duration Nd:YAG laser of 100 mJ/pulse, observed particle velocity ranges 0.5 km/s to 1.5 km/s in case of in air and the maximum velocity is extended up to 1.5-2 km/s in vacuum. SEM observation of the ground surface reveals that glass surface is covered with micro cracks with several microns deep, which might attribute to macro particle production. In this sense, not surface roughness but also surface structure will be important in the ablation phenomena of glass. It is plausible that absorption of laser beam at the glass surface causes spallation like phenomena as well as production of an amount of plasma, and the plasma production might be responsible for the acceleration of broken fragments of glass. We applied the phenomena to ignite PETN powder explosive, and succeeded in igniting PETN powder only by laser ablation of ground glass.