Abstract

In recent years excimer laser processing of organic materials such as biological tissues and polymers have found very important practical applications in a variety of fields with special focus on medicine and microelectronics. To utilize all the advantages offered by the method a better understanding of the underlying physics is required. The interaction of high power laser pulses with pulse durations in the nanosecond range with highly absorbing substances poses a serious theoretical and experimental challenge. Recent studies have shown that optical properties of the surfaces are dramatically altered during excimer irradiation.^1,2 In this paper we present experimental data on the transient optical properties of polyimide during and immediately after the excimer laser irradiation measured by electronically delayed dye laser pulses. To the best of our knowledge this is the first set of data where time dependent transmission, reflection, and scattering is measured simultaneously.

© 1995 IEEE