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Effects of dopant type and concentration on the femtosecond laser ablation threshold and incubation behaviour of silicon

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Abstract

In laser micromachining, the ablation threshold (minimum fluence required to cause ablation) is a key performance parameter and overall indicator of the efficiency of material removal. For pulsed laser micromachining, this important observable depends upon material properties, pulse properties and the number of pulses applied in a complex manner that is not yet well understood. The incubation effect is one example. It manifests as a change in the ablation threshold as a function of number of laser pulses applied and is driven by photoinduced defect accumulation in the material. Here, we study femtosecond (800 nm, 110 fs, 0.1–1 mJ/pulse) micromachining of a material with well-defined initial defect concentrations: doped Si across a range of dopant types and concentrations. The single-pulse ablation threshold (F th,1) was observed to decrease with increasing dopant concentration, from a maximum of 0.70 J/cm2 (±0.02) for undoped Si to 0.51 J/cm2 (±0.01) for highly N-type doped Si. The effect was greater for N-type doped Si than for P-type, consistent with the higher carrier mobility of electrons compared to holes. In contrast, the infinite-pulse ablation threshold (F th,∞ ) was the same for all doping levels and types. We attribute this asymptotic behaviour to a maximum defect concentration that is independent of the initial defect concentration and type. These results lend insight into the mechanism of multipulse, femtosecond laser ablation.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge financial support from the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Grants UOAX1202 (Laser Microfabrication and Micromachining) and UOAX1416 (Tailored Beam Shapes for Fast, Efficient and Precise Femtosecond Laser Micromachining).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Photon Factory, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand

    Reece N. Oosterbeek, Carsten Corazza, Simon Ashforth & M. Cather Simpson

  2. School of Chemical Sciences, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand

    Reece N. Oosterbeek, Carsten Corazza & M. Cather Simpson

  3. The Dodd Walls Centre for Quantum and Photonic Technologies, The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Auckland, New Zealand

    Reece N. Oosterbeek, Carsten Corazza, Simon Ashforth & M. Cather Simpson

  4. Department of Physics, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand

    Simon Ashforth & M. Cather Simpson

Authors
  1. Reece N. Oosterbeek
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  2. Carsten Corazza
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  4. M. Cather Simpson
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Correspondence to M. Cather Simpson.

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Oosterbeek, R.N., Corazza, C., Ashforth, S. et al. Effects of dopant type and concentration on the femtosecond laser ablation threshold and incubation behaviour of silicon. Appl. Phys. A 122, 449 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-016-9969-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-016-9969-y

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