Title :
Record low pulse-energy micromachining in bulk glass with an ultrafast laser
Author :
Cai, Wenjian ; Piestun, Rafael
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Phys., Colorado Univ., Boulder, CO, USA
Abstract :
In this paper, we report the machining of various types of glasses by femtosecond pulses generated directly from a Ti:sapphire oscillator with less than half of that pulse energy. In our experiments we used a Ti:Sapphire laser pumped by a double-frequency Nd:YVO4 laser. Our strategy is to tightly focus sub-30fs pulses with a high numerical aperture objective lens while optimizing the bandwidth and pulse temporal and spatial shape to achieve minimum threshold energy for permanent structural damage.
Keywords :
aluminium compounds; laser beam effects; lenses; micromachining; neodymium; optical glass; optical pulse generation; optical pumping; solid lasers; spatiotemporal phenomena; titanium; yttrium compounds; 30 fs; Al2O3:Ti; Ti:sapphire laser pump; Ti:sapphire oscillator; YVO4:Nd; bulk glass; double-frequency Nd:YVO4 laser; femtosecond pulse; numerical aperture; objective lens; pulse spatial shape; pulse temporal shape; pulse-energy micromachining; structural damage; threshold energy; ultrafast laser; Apertures; Glass; Laser excitation; Machining; Micromachining; Optical pulse generation; Optical pulses; Oscillators; Pulse shaping methods; Pump lasers;
Conference_Titel :
Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe, 2003. CLEO/Europe. 2003 Conference on
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-7734-6
DOI :
10.1109/CLEOE.2003.1313620
