Ultrafast two-color ablation of fused silica

Abstract

Two ultrafast laser pulses at the fundamental Ti:sapphire laser wavelength of 800 nm and the second harmonic at 400 nm were used to study the temporal evolution of the transmissivity in fused silica and resulting material ablation. It was observed that there was a sharp drop in the transmissivity of the probe pulse at zero delay between the two pulses, indicating that there was enhanced absorption/reflection due to the creation of defect states or free electron plasma by the pump pulse. Subsequent atomic force microscopy measurements of the ablated holes revealed that the ablated volume increased by about 50% when the separations of the two pulses are within 300 fs. Two-color machining of channels at the surface also showed a similar increase in the machined depth and width when the pulses are overlapped in time.