Abstract

With short pulses in the nanosecond range, matter can be removed through ablation with fewer thermal effects than are experienced when processing is carried out with continuous (or long-pulses) lasers. In many cases this ablative mechanism results in a higher degree of accuracy in terms of depth of removed matter, which makes laser processing a promising tool in microelectronics, microoptics,¹ and micromechanics. There are, however, several drawbacks associated with the use of this kind of laser: (i) the pulse-to-pulse and long-term stability are not always sufficient to obtain a repeatable removal accuracy, and (ii) the laser irradiation causes a variation in the physicochemical properties of the sample: absorption may vary the during process because of changes in surface roughness or chemical composition.

© 1995 Optical Society of America