Laser-ablated volume and depth as a function of

pulse duration in aluminum targets

Boris Le Drogoff, François Vidal, Stéphane Laville, Mohamed Chaker, Tudor Johnston,
Olivier Barthélemy, Joëlle Margot, and Mohamad Sabsabi

The ablated depth and volume per laser pulse from an aluminum target were measured for pulse
durations that ranged from 80 fs to 270 ps at an average fluence of ⬃100 J兾cm2 and a wavelength of 0.8
␮m. The ablated volume showed a flat maximum for subpicosecond pulses and a minimum for ⬃6 ps. The
crater diameters were rather constant up to pulse durations of ⬃6 ps and increased for larger pulse
durations. As a result, the ablated depth also showed a plateau for subpicosecond pulses but decreased
monotonically with pulse duration. A physical interpretation of these results and their consequences for
laser applications are discussed. © 2005 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: 140.3390, 140.0140.

1. Introduction and various laser wavelengths were compared for

Removal of matter by means of a laser beam, termed
laser ablation, has been accomplished in micromach-
ining,1 thin-film deposition,2 and chemical analysis.3
For a given laser fluence (laser energy per unit area)
and wavelength, the ablation dynamics and results
vary considerably with laser pulse duration ␶.4 Al-
though understanding the influence of pulse duration
on ablation efficiency (i.e., on the volume of matter
ablated per laser pulse) for a given wavelength and
fluence is fundamental for most laser applications,
this issue has been discussed in only a few papers to
date. One of the most significant investigations was
presented by Semerok et al.,5 who carried out mea-
surements of a variety of metals and investigated the
dependence of the ablation efficiency on pulse dura-
tion for only three specific values of pulse duration
(150 fs, 25 ps, and 4 ns). However, various fluences
When this research was performed, B. Le Drogoff, F. Vidal
(vidal@inrs-emt.uquebec.ca), S. Laville, M. Chaker, and T. John-
son were with the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique-
Énergie, Matériaux et Télécommunications, 1650 Boulevard
Lionel-Boulet, Varennes, Quebec J3X 1S2, Canada. B. Le Drogoff,
along with M. Sabsabi, is now with the Institut des Matériaux
Industriels, Conseil National de Recherches du Canada, 75 Bou-
levard de Mortagne, Boucherville, Quebec J4B 6Y4, Canada. O.
Barthélemy and J. Margot are with the Département de Physique,
Université de Montréal, 2900 Boulevard Édouard-Montpetit, Mon-
treal, Quebec H3C 3J7, Canada.
Received 18 June 2004; accepted 16 July 2004.
0003-6935/05/020278-04$15.00/0
© 2005 Optical Society of America
each pulse duration. The main conclusion of that
study was that the ablated volume per pulse and per
unit laser energy in several metals, displayed as a
function of the pulse duration, seems to show a min-
imum in the picosecond regime. Additionally, the
same team presented ablation experiments with cop-
per at a fluence of 21 J兾cm2 with the pulse duration
in the range 0.1–10 ps.6 The results clearly showed a
rough plateau in the ablated depth for subpicosecond
pulses and a monotonic decrease for pulse durations
larger than ⬃1 ps.
Even though these papers have, to some extent,
addressed some features of the influence of the pulse
duration on the ablation efficiency, a parametric and
detailed experimental determination of the ablation
efficiency, with only the pulse duration varied, had
still to be made to verify the general tendencies in-
ferred by Semerok et al.5
The main purpose of the study reported here is to
present the results of laser-ablation efficiencies when
a single laser wavelength, a single average fluence,
and several pulse durations are used. A physical in-
terpretation of the results is also discussed on the
basis of our simulation results.7
2. Experimental Setup
The experimental setup used in this study is shown
in Fig. 1. The measurements were all performed in a
single-shot mode, in air at atmospheric pressure, by
use of a Ti:sapphire laser system 共␭ ⫽ 0.8 ␮m兲 based
on the chirped-pulse amplification technique that al-
lows the pulse duration to vary from 80 fs to 270 ps.

278 APPLIED OPTICS 兾 Vol. 44, No. 2 兾 10 January 2005

Fig. 1. A, Schematic of the ablation experiments. B, Conical
shape of the resultant crater.

(We obtained the 270-ps laser pulses by bypassing

the compressor.) The incident Gaussian laser pulse Fig. 2. Measured ablated volume per pulse, V (filled squares), and
was spatially shaped by the knife-edge method with a ablated depth per pulse ␦, (open circles), as functions of pulse
5-mm-diameter diaphragm and focused with a duration. The scales were chosen such that the shortest pulses
would coincide.
35-mm objective lens to a diameter (at 1兾e2) esti-
mated as ⬃5 ␮m at focus (using a knife-edge method),
with a depth of 3.5 ␮m. The beam, directed along the measurements. One can observe from Fig. 2 that the
normal to the target surface, was focused at 25 ␮m two curves can be made to coincide up to ⬃6 ps.
behind the incidence surface of the 100-␮m-thick alu- For long pulses (⬃6 ps and more), Fig. 2 shows
minum target. (We verified that no air breakdown significant differences in the variation of V and ␦.
occurred for the laser energy used, which was 60 ␮J.) When the ablated volume starts to increase, the ab-
The fluence at the focal spot was thus estimated as lated depth continues to decrease with pulse dura-
⬃300 J兾cm2. As the pulse diameter is not constant tion. The different behaviors of the ablated depth and
over the target thickness, this value constitutes a the volume are related to that of crater diameter D,
high upper limit for the fluence used in the experi- which is shown in Fig. 3. The crater diameter can be
ments. We estimate that all our ablated volume and seen to be equal to ⬃24 ␮m below ⬃6 ps and to
depth measurements were performed at an average increase monotonically past this value. Thus one can
laser fluence of roughly 100 J兾cm2. say that, whereas the crater diameter does not in-
It is worth noting that we obtained reproducible crease appreciably, the system is essentially one di-
measurements only by reducing the size of the focal mensional (1-D), and that, in that regime, the ablated
spot to at most a few tens of micrometers, for which depth and volume behave in the same way. For larger
relatively short focal lengths must be used. For larger pulse durations, most of the ablated volume is due to
focal spots it is likely that the lack of reproducibility an increase in the crater diameter, as the ablated
is due to the presence of hot spots whose amplitude
and distribution can change from one shot to another.
The pulse’s radial profile becomes more regular as the
focal spot diameter approaches the diffraction limit.
We define the average ablated depth per pulse as
␦ ⫽ h兾Nb, where h is the known aluminum-foil thick-
ness 共h ⫽ 100 ␮m兲 and Nb is the number of laser shots
of given energy necessary to bore through the alumi-
num foil. Because optical microscope observations
showed that the crater is approximately conical [Fig.
1B], the ablated volume per pulse, V, is approxi-
mately related to the ablated depth by means of the
crater diameter at the target surface, D, by the rela-
tion V ⫽ 共␲兾12兲D2␦. (The crater diameter was deter-
mined by optical microscopy.)

3. Results and Discussion

Figure 2 shows the measured ablated depth and vol-
ume as a function of pulse duration. In this figure the
right- and left-hand scales have been set such that
the two curves coincide for the shortest pulse dura-
tions. The error bars indicate the dispersion of 10 Fig. 3. Crater diameter as a function of pulse duration.

10 January 2005 兾 Vol. 44, No. 2 兾 APPLIED OPTICS 279


Fig. 4. Calculated ablated depth in aluminum as a function of
pulse duration for three fluences.
depth decreases. A similarly decreasing ablated
depth for increasing fluence was noted for steel tar-
gets8 for fluences smaller than ⬃3000 J兾cm2. How-
ever, at higher fluences the ablated depth shows two
maxima8 in the same way as the volume shown in
Fig. 2.
The influence of the pulse duration on the ablation
efficiency for aluminum was investigated theoreti-
cally previously by means of a detailed 1-D fluid
code.7 This code includes laser energy absorption in
the cold solid as well as in the subsequent plasma,
and a realistic equation of state for aluminum. The
calculated ablated depth is shown in Fig. 4 as a func-
tion of pulse duration for a laser wavelength of 0.8
␮m and for several values of fluences. One can ob-
serve that, for a given fluence, (i) for pulses shorter
than ⬃1 ps, the ablated depth is nearly independent
of the pulse duration; (ii) for fluences higher than ⬃10
J兾cm2, the ablated depth as a function of pulse dura-
tion presents two maxima, the highest of which oc-
curs for subpicosecond pulses, with a minimum that
occurs near 10 ps, in qualitative agreement with Se-
merok et al.5; and (iii) for longer pulse durations,
ablation decreases as the corresponding ablation
threshold is approached.
The basic concepts can be obtained by examination
of the simulation snapshots in detail. For subpicosec-
ond laser pulses, laser energy absorption occurs es-
sentially close to the solid density, because matter
cannot move much in such a short time. For longer
pulses, significant heat conduction in the target takes
place while the pulse is on, resulting in less energy
remaining to accomplish ablation. For these longer
pulses, an important fraction of the incoming laser
energy is absorbed in the expanding plasma formed
in front of the target surface, and this extra reservoir
of energy assists ablation at late times.
The observed behavior of the measured ablated
volume shown in Fig. 2 is in qualitative agreement
280 APPLIED OPTICS 兾 Vol. 44, No. 2 兾 10 January 2005
with the predictions of this model. It might seem
puzzling at first that the measured ablated volume is
also in agreement with the ablated depth obtained
from the 1-D model and shown in Fig. 4, because the
ablated depth is seen to decrease in Fig. 2. The solu-
tion to this apparent dilemma is that, in the 1-D
simulations, it is implicitly assumed that no thermal
conduction or plasma expansion is allowed in the
lateral directions. As a result, in the 1-D model all the
absorbed laser energy is used to increase the depth of
the crater instead of increasing its diameter. There-
fore, although the crater diameter is assumed to be
constant in the 1-D model (with an undefined value),
the corresponding ablated volume has the correct be-
havior as a function of the pulse duration.
By analyzing the code details we found that the
increase in the ablated depth past the minimum ob-
served in Fig. 4, near 10 ps, was essentially due to the
more efficient transfer of laser energy to the plasma
formed with the longer pulses. This energy transfer
resulted in heating of the solid surface by thermal
conduction, which naturally raised the amount of ab-
lation. The increase of crater diameter for ␶ ⬍ 6 ps
observed in Fig. 3 is thus likely connected with the
size of the laser-heated plasma bowl formed in front
of the target surface. Lateral refraction of the laser
light by the expanding plasma may perhaps also be-
gin to play a role in this increase in crater diameter at
the longer pulse durations.
4. Conclusions
In summary, the ablated volume per pulse measured
in an aluminum target for an average fluence of the
order of 100 J兾cm2 shows a nearly flat plateau for
subpicosecond pulses, then a drop by a factor of 1.8
with a minimum near ␶ ⫽ 6 ps, and a modest increase
up to subnanosecond pulse durations. In contrast, the
ablated depth per pulse decreases monotonically as a
function of pulse duration for ␶ ⬎ 1 ps. The crater
diameter is constant up to ⬃6 ps and increases rap-
idly beyond that value. From our 1-D code, the in-
crease of ablated volume for longer pulse durations is
interpreted as being due to the absorption of laser
energy in the expanding plasma. A more detailed
interpretation of the experimental results, in partic-
ular of the dependence of the crater’s diameter and
depth on the pulse duration, would require consider-
ation of a two-dimensional model, at least for pulse
durations greater than ⬃6 ps.
Our results clearly show that, if one wishes to per-
form efficient ablation with lateral precision, pulses
of 1 ps or less are essential, whereas pulse durations
larger than ⬃10 ps should be avoided. This advan-
tage of subpicosecond laser pulses is now well estab-
lished for micromachining of a large variety of
materials3,9 and is being investigated for medical ap-
plications.10
The present investigation has clearly identified a
boundary between short pulses and long pulses that
is near 6 ps for aluminum. Whereas a 1-D code, such
as the one discussed in this paper, cannot describe
the observed two-dimensional features of the ablation
craters, it is likely that the 1-D code can still be used
to estimate this boundary with good precision. Al-
though this study was performed with aluminum, we
believe that the results apply generally, except that
the minimum ablated volume may well occur at other
values than ⬃6 ps for other materials.
This study was financed partly by the National
Science and Engineering Research Council of
Canada.
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