Abstract

During the past several years there have been many investigations of UV laser cleaning of surfaces, including dielectrics and semiconductors. There has been little discussion of surface or bulk optical damage that might accompany UV laser cleaning. It is generally assumed and/or demonstrated that the threshold fluence for optical damage is significantly larger than the cleaning fluence for the particular material. However, it is a well known fact that any surface contamination reduces the fluence threshold for surface optical damage.

© 1998 IEEE