Ultrafast laser pulses spatially shaped as Bessel beams in dielectrics create high aspect ratio plasma channels whose relaxation can lead to the formation of nanochannels. We report a strong enhancement of the nanochannel drilling efficiency with illumination by double pulses separated by a delay between 10 to 500 ps. This enables the formation of nanochannels with diameters down to 100 nm. Experimental absorption measurements demonstrate that the increase of drilling efficiency is due to an increase of the confinement of the energy deposition. Nanochannel formation corresponds to a drastic change in absorption of the second pulse demonstrating the occurrence of a phase change produced by the first pulse. This creates a highly absorbing long-living state. Our measurements show that it is compatible with the semi-metallization of warm dense glass which takes place within a timescale of <10 ps after the first laser pulse illumination.
We report on the development of an ultrafast beam shaper capable of generating Bessel beams of high cone angle that maintain a high-intensity hot spot with subwavelength diameter over a propagation distance in excess of 8~mm. This generates a high-intensity focal region with extremely high aspect ratio exceeding 10~000:1. The absence of intermediate focusing in the shaper allows for shaping very high energies, up to Joule levels. We demonstrate proof of principle application of the Bessel beam shaper for stealth dicing of thick glass, up to 1~cm. We expect this high energy Bessel beam shaper w…
Ultrafast Bessel beams demonstrate a significant capacity of structuring transparent materials with high degree of accuracy and exceptional aspect ratio. The ability to localize energy on the nanometer scale (bypassing the 100 nm milestone) makes them ideal tools for advanced laser nanoscale processing on surfaces and in the bulk. This allows to generate and combine micron and nano-sized features into hybrid structures that show novel functionalities. Their high aspect ratio and the accurate location can equally drive an efficient material modification and processing strategy on large dimensio…
Ultrafast lasers have revolutionized material processing, opening a wealth of new applications in many areas of science. A recent technology that allows the cleaving of transparent materials via non-ablative processes is based on focusing and translating a high-intensity laser beam within a material to induce a well-defined internal stress plane. This then enables material separation without debris generation. Here, we use a non-diffracting beam engineered to have a transverse elliptical spatial profile to generate high aspect ratio elliptical channels in glass of dimension 350 nm x 710 nm, an…
While ultrafast laser welding is an appealing technique for bonding transparent workpieces, it is not applicable for joining silicon samples due to nonlinear propagation effects which dramatically diminishes the possible energy deposition at the interface. We demonstrate that these limitations can be circumvented by local absorption enhancement at the interface thanks to metallic nanolayer deposition. By combining the resulting exalted absorption with filament relocation during ultrafast laser irradiation, silicon samples can be efficiently joined. Shear joining strengths >4 MPa are obtained f…
Ultrafast lasers are ideal tools to process transparent materials because they spatially confine the deposition of laser energy within the material's bulk via nonlinear photoionization processes. Nonlinear propagation and filamentation were initially regarded as deleterious effects. But in the last decade, they turned out to be benefits to control energy deposition over long distances. These effects create very high aspect ratio structures which have found a number of important applications, particularly for glass separation with non-ablative techniques. This chapter reviews the developments o…
We investigate the spectral degree of freedom of OAM-carrying localized waves, and its influence on their transverse intensity distribution. In particular, we focus our attention on two different families of spectra, namely exponentially decaying spectra, which are very tightly connected to fundamental X-waves, and Bessel-modulated spectra. For each class we show how it is possible, by suitable manipulating their spectrum, to structure their transverse intensity distribution, thus creating a radial structure similar to that of Laguerre-Gaussian beams. To complete our analysis, we investigate t…
The remarkable temporal properties of ultra-short pulsed lasers in combination with novel beam shaping concepts enable the development of completely new material processing strategies. We demonstrate the benefit of employing focus distributions being tailored in all three spatial dimensions. As example advanced Bessel-like beam profiles, 3D-beam splitting concepts and flat-top focus distributions are used to achieve high-quality and efficient results for cutting, welding and drilling applications. Spatial and temporal in situ diagnostics is employed to analyze light-matter interaction and, in …
The axial dependence of femtosecond filamentation in air is measured under conditions of varying laser pulsewidth, energy, and focusing f-number. Filaments are characterized by the ultrafast z-dependent absorption of energy from the laser pulse and diagnosed by measuring the local single cycle acoustic wave generated. Results are compared to 2D+1 simulations of pulse propagation, whose results are highly sensitive to the instantaneous (electronic) part of the nonlinear response of $N_2$ and $O_2$. We find that recent measurements of the nonlinear refractive index ($n_2$) in [J.K. Wahlstrand et…
In this study,we combined time-resolved terahertz spectroscopy along with transient absorption spectroscopy to revisit the interlayer non-equilibrium carrier dynamics in largely lateral size Gr/MoS2 heterostructure fabricated with chemical vapor deposition method. Our experimental results reveal that, with photon-energy below the A-exciton of MoS2 monolayer, hot electrons transfer from graphene to MoS2 takes place in time scale of less than 0.5 ps, resulting in ultrafast formation of interfacial exciton in the heterostructure, subsequently, recombination relaxation of the interfacial exciton o…
Although ultrafast laser materials processing has advanced at a breakneck pace over the last two decades, most applications have been developed with laser pulses at near-IR or visible wavelengths. Recent progress in mid-infrared (MIR) femtosecond laser source development may create novel capabilities for material processing. This is because, at high intensities required for such processing, wavelength tuning to longer wavelengths opens the pathway to a special regime of laser-solid interactions. Under these conditions, due to the $λ^2$ scaling, the ponderomotive energy of laser-driven electron…
We investigate photoinization, energy deposition, plasma formation and the ultrafast optical breakdown in crystalline silicon irradiated by intense near-infrared laser pulses with pulse duration $τ\le $ 100 fs. The occurrence of high-intensity breakdown was established by the sudden increase of the absorbed laser energy inside the bulk, which corresponds to threshold energy fluence $Φ_{th} > $ 1 J/cm$^2$. The optical breakdown is accompanied by severe spectral broadening of the transmitted pulse. For the studied irradiation conditions, we find that the threshold fluence increases linearly with…
Approaching energy coupling in laser-irradiated metals, we point out the role of electron-electron collision as an efficient control factor for ultrafast optical absorption. The high degree of laser-induced electron-ion nonequilibrium drives a complex absorption pattern with consequences on the transient optical properties. Consequently, high electronic temperatures determine largely the collision frequency and establish a transition between absorptive regimes in solid and plasma phases. In particular, taking into account umklapp electron-electron collisions, we performed hydrodynamic simulati…
Burst-Mode Ultrafast Laser Welding of Sapphire and Invar Alloy Across Large Interfacial Gaps up to 10 $μ$m
Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院上海光学精密机械研究所）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications（南京邮电大学）；Jiangnan University（江南大学）
We investigate the non-linear response and energy absorption in bulk silicon irradiated by intense 12-fs near-infrared laser pulses. Depending on the laser intensity, we distinguish two regimes of non-linear absorption of the laser energy: for low intensities, energy deposition and photoionization involve perturbative three-photon transition through the direct bandgap of silicon. For laser intensities near and above 10$^{14}$ W/cm$^2$, corresponding to photocarrier density of order 10$^{22}$ cm$^{-3}$, we find that absorption at near-infrared wavelengths is greatly enhanced due to excitation o…
Nanoscale thermally assisted hydrodynamic melt perturbations induced by ultrafast laser energy deposition in noble-metal films produce irreversible nanoscale translative mass redistributions and results in formation of radially-symmetric frozen surface structures. We demonstrate that the final three-dimensional (3D) shape of the surface structures formed after resolidification of the molten part of the film is shown to be governed by incident laser fluence and, more importantly, predicted theoretically via molecular dynamics modeling. Considering the underlying physical processes associated wi…
We demonstrate for the first time to our knowledge the generation of overcritical plasma densities inside transparent solids over long distances using femtosecond laser pulses. This opens new avenues for high energy density physics in confined geometry such as warm dense matter study or the synthesis of new material phases. We show both with experiments and first-principles simulations, that femtosecond conical interference via a Bessel beam creates a dense plasma rod with typically 100 nm diameter in sapphire. The interaction is in ideal conditions to trigger collisionless resonance absorptio…
Influence of Inter-Pulse Delay and Geometric Constraints on Damage and Optical Characteristics in thin Metal Targets Irradiated by Double Ultrashort Laser Pulses
