Abstract

The advent of intense femtosecond lasers has led to a growing interest in studies of ultrashort-pulse laser-matter interactions. In this contribution we report on the investigations of ablation of metals, silicon, and ceramics with the radiation of a commercial femtosecond Tr:sapphire laser (pulse duration >150 fs, pulse energy <100 mJ, wavelength 780 nm). These investigations have been performed, for the first time, to our knowledge, in a very broad parameter range (pulse duration: 200 fs –5ns, intensity: 10¹¹⁻10¹⁶ W/cm²), allowing a direct study of the influence of the laser pulse duration and energy on the ablation process.

© 1996 Optical Society of America