Evaluation of Crater Width in Nanosecond Laser Ablation of Ti in Liquids and the Effect of Light Absorption by Ablated Nano-Particles

Micro size craters were created by interaction of nanosecond laser beam with titanium target in liquid media. The dimension of crater i.e. depth and width is important in some applications such as micromachining. When the interaction occurs in liquid environment, the ablated materials from the target expand into the liquid. The ablated material can affect the interaction process if the ablated material concentration increases. In this paper, we study the effect of ablated materials in liquids on the crater width. The crater dimension was characterized by using an optical microscope. The results show that not only the type of environment liquid is important in the final size of the created craters, but also the laser fluence and the liquid depth in which the interaction takes place is important in the crater size.