100 kHz diffraction-limited femtosecond laser machining

Nicolas Sanner (1) , Nicolas Huot (1) , Eric Audouard (1) , Christian Larat (2) , Pierre Laporte (1) , Jean-Pierre Huignard (2)

1 LHC - Laboratoire Hubert Curien
2 Thales Research and Technology [Palaiseau]

We demonstrate active and adaptive wavefront correction of a 100 kHz amplified femtosecond laser chain, and investigate the subsequent improvement for micromachining applications. Thanks to a non-pixelated liquid crystal modulator, phase-front distorsions are decreased down to landa/15 peak-valley and landa/100 rms. Clean 1.7 µm diffraction-limited micro-holes are obtained, both on low-threshold metallic and high-threshold dielectric materials. This high beam quality femtosecond source enables diffraction-limited high-speed micromachining.

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]

Nicolas Sanner, Nicolas Huot, Eric Audouard, Christian Larat, Pierre Laporte, et al.. 100 kHz diffraction-limited femtosecond laser machining. Applied Physcics B, 2005, 80, pp.27-30. ⟨ujm-00118042⟩