We report here experimental results on laser ablation of metals in air and in vacuum in similar irradiation conditions. The experiments revealed that the ablation thresholds in air are less than half those measured in vacuum. Our analysis shows that this difference is caused by the existence of a long-lived transient non-equilibrium surface state at the solid-vacuum interface. The energy distribution of atoms at the surface is Maxwellian-like but with its high-energy tail truncated at the binding energy. We find that in vacuum the time needed for energy transfer from the bulk to the surface layer to build the high-energy tail, exceeds other characteristic timescales such as the electron-ion temperature equilibration time and surface cooling time. This prohibits thermal evaporation in vacuum for which the high-energy tail is essential. In air, however, collisions between the gas atoms and the surface markedly reduce the lifetime of this non-equilibrium surface state allowing thermal evaporation to proceed before the surface cools. We found that ablation threshold in vacuum corresponds to non-equilibrium ablation during the pulse, while thermal evaporation after the pulse is responsible for the lower ablation threshold observed in air. This paper provides direct experimental evidence of how the transient surface effects may strongly affect the onset and rate of a solid-gas phase transition.
We study the formation of carbon nanoclusters created by MHz repetition rate - picosecond laser pulses. We show that the average size of a nanocluster is determined exclusively by single laser pulse parameters and is largely independent of the gas fill (He, Ar, Kr, Xe) and pressure, in a range from 20 mTorr up to 200 Torr. We provide evidence of the formation of large clusters at higher pressures in excess of 400 Torr, where the gas fill density is comparable or higher to the density of carbons in the ablated plume, and use simple kinetic theory to estimate cluster sizes, which are in qualitative agreement with the experimental data. We conclude that at pressures well below 400 Torr, the role of the buffer gas is to induce a transition between thin solid film formation on the substrate and nanofoam formation by diffusing the clusters through the gas, with no significant effect upon the average cluster size. At the higher pressure the buffer gas serves as a confiner for the carbon plume, increasing the collision frequency between the carbon atoms and resulting in cluster size growth. We also introduce preliminary ICCD imaging results investigating the temporal evolution of the laser plume.
We report experiments on the ablation of arsenic trisulphide and silicon using high-repetition-rate (megahertz) trains of picosecond pulses. In the case of arsenic trisulphide, the average single pulse fluence at ablation threshold is found to be >100 times lower when pulses are delivered as a 76-MHz train compared with the case of a solitary pulse. For silicon, however, the threshold for a 4.1-MHz train equals the value for a solitary pulse. A model of irradiation by high-repetition-rate pulse trains demonstrates that for arsenic trisulphide energy accumulates in the target surface from several hundred successive pulses, lowering the ablation threshold and causing a change from the laser-solid to laser-plasma mode as the surface temperature increases.
High average power (10-50W) slow mode-locked lasers operating with repetition rates of a few MHz provide a unique combination of high peak power, short pulse duration, and high brightness that makes them ideal for applications in pulsed laser ablation and nonlinear optics. With peak powers in the MW range and near diffraction-limited output beams, focussed intensities can exceed 1012W/cm2: sufficient for ablation of most solid materials or to saturate nonlinear optical interactions.
We report the use of sub-picosecond near-IR and ps UV pulsed lasers for precision ablation of freshly extracted human teeth. The sub-picosecond laser wavelength was ~800nm, with pulsewidth 150 fs and pulse repetition rate of 1kHz; the UV laser produced 10 ps pulses at 266 nm with pulse rate of ~1.2x105 pulses/s; both lasers produced ~1 W of output energy, and the laser fluence was kept at the same level of 10-25 J/cm2. Laser radiation from both laser were effectively absorbed in the teeth enamel, but the mechanisms of absorption were radically different: the near-IR laser energy was absorbed in a plasma layer formed through the optical breakdown mechanism initiated by multiphoton absorption, while the UV-radiation was absorbed due to molecular photodissociation of the enamel and conventional thermal deposition. The rise in the intrapulpal temperature was monitored by embedded thermocouples, and was shown to remain low with subpicosecond laser pulses, but risen up to 30°C, well above the 5°C pain level with the UV-laser. This study demonstrates the potential for ultra-short-pulsed lasers to precision and painless ablation of dental enamel, and indicated the optimal combination of laser parameters in terms of pulse energy, duration, intensity, and repetition rate, required for the laser ablation rates comparable to that of mechanical drill.
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