CC BY
5The 30th International Conference on Advanced Laser Technologies
ALT'23
LM-I-1
Laser-induced micro-plasma ablation recent progress and future prospects
V.P. Veiko, A.A. Samochvalov, M.M. Sergeev, V.A. Rymkevich G.K. Kostyuk, A.A. Petrov, V.A. Shkuratova, R.A. Zakoldaev
ITMO University, St. Petersburg, Russia, vadim. [email protected]
Scientific and applied interest in laser plasma (LP) has not faded away for a long time. LP is essentially a "converter" of laser energy into other radiation ranges, forms of matter and motion. This is confirmed by such LP applications as soft X-ray generation, laser jet propulsion, nanoparticles synthesis, deposition of thin films, impact hardening of metals, etc. However, in this work, the main attention is paid to a relatively new type of LP and its specific applications, namely, the plasma formed during laser ablation of a strongly absorbing target in a full contact with a solid medium transparent to a laser radiation.
This kind of LP will be called "compressed laser-induced microplasma ablation" (CLIMPA). CLIMPA is, in essence, a "focused" bunch of excited particles (electrons, ions, atoms and molecules), and its temporal and spatial parameters are completely determined by the parameters of the laser beam and the properties of the target substance and transparent medium, as well as the size of the gap between them. Transparent material, limiting the expansion of the LP, is under the influence of a controlled CLIMPA and it becomes possible for its precise and efficient processing
Previously, the use of the CLIMPA methods for fabricating a number of optical elements on the surface of fused quartz, such as microlens arrays, diffraction gratings, phase optical elements (POEs) etc., has already been reported [1, 2]. At this stage, one of the most pressing issues in optics is the creation of structured light beams, which opens up new possibilities in various problems of optical measurements, as well as in a number of tasks in the processing of thin films. Structured light beams can be obtained using phase-polarization optical elements (PPOE) on birefringent materials. However, the CLIMPA method has not yet been applied to the processing of such crystalline materials, since they are subject to brittle thermomechanical fracture.
The report describes an essence of the CLIMPA method, its parameters, regimes and examples of its application for fabrication of PPOEs, which provide generation and multiplexing of vortex beams. We used CLIMPA for multisectoral binary phase plates (MBPPs) and a birefringent spiral phase retarder (BSPR) fabrication. Fabricated on fused silica plates MBPPs successfully multiplexed Gaussian beam to the scalar vortex beam superposition. Fabricated on an Iceland spar plate BSPR was used to generate radially and azimuthally polarized vector vortex beams [3, 4]. High speed fabrication of MBPPs and BSPR was no more than 10 minutes to fabricate 8 mm2 samples. Fabricated components were tested in the schemes with He-Ne (633 nm) and fiber (1.06 ^m) lasers.
The CLIMPA method has all advantages of laser processing - flexibility, accuracy, simplicity, singlestage, ease of automation, etc., and it is able to provide energy-efficient and relatively simple production of POEs with high productivity. Extension of the CLIMPA method to new wavelengths of laser radiation (up to 10.6 ^m in the IR region and up to 193 nm in the UV), to short pulse durations (up to psec and fsec), and the use of new targets, including chemically active ones , as well as a more detailed study of the CLIMPA mechanism, can significantly expand the range of processed materials and possible applications [5, 6].
[1] Veiko V.P., Volkov S.A., Zakoldaev R.A., Sergeev M.M.,. Laser-induced microplasma as a tool for microstructuring transparent media // Quantum Electronics. - 2017. - V. 47. - №. 9. - P. 842-848.
[2] Zakoldaev R.A., Kostyuk G.K., Rymkevich V.S., Koval V.V., Sergeev M.M., Veiko V.P., Yakovlev E.B., Sivers A.N. Fast Fabrication of Multilevel Phase Plates Used for Laser Beam Correction // Journal of Laser Micro Nanoengineering - 2017, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 281-285
[3] Shkuratova V.A., Rymkevich V. S., Kostyuk G. K., Sergeev M.M., Laser-induced microplasma as effective tool for phase elements fabrication on amorphous and crystalline materials // Journal of Laser Micro Nanoengineering. - 2018. - V. 13. - №. 3. - P. 211215.
[4] Kostyk G.K., Shkuratova V.A., Petrov A.A., Sergeev M.M. Birefringent phase masks for laser beams shaping during laser material processing at imaging plane, June 2022, Optical Engineering 61(06)
[5] Gresko V.R., Rymkevich V.S., Samokhvalov A.A., Veiko V.P. et al, CO2 laser-induced micro-plume treatment of silicon: technique and application // Optical and Quantum Electronics - 2019, Vol. 51, No. 12, pp. 397
[6] Rymkevich V.S., Sergeev M.M., Zakoldaev R.A. Laser microplasma as a spot tool for glass processing: focusing conditions // Journal of Materials Processing Technology - 2021, Vol. 292, pp. 117061
