The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3161–3169

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-022-10120-7

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Underwater laser micromachining of silicon in pressurized

environment
Wisan Charee1 · Huan Qi2 · Viboon Saetang3 

Received: 6 April 2022 / Accepted: 6 September 2022 / Published online: 12 September 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2022

Abstract
Optical interference caused by gas bubbles in water is of prime concern in underwater laser micromachining process since
it importantly affects the quality of laser-ablated surface and material removal rate. This study applied positive water pres-
sure in the underwater laser ablation with the attempts to reduce the bubble size, minimize the optical disturbance to the
laser beam in water, and promote the cut quality. A nanosecond pulse laser was used for grooving a single-crystalline silicon
wafer in a pressurized water environment. The effects of water pressure and average laser power on groove width, groove
depth, size of heat-affected zone, and cut surface morphology were examined and discussed together with the analysis of
laser beam refraction in water. The results revealed that the higher the water pressure, the cleaner the cut surface, and smaller
heat-affected zone and higher aspect ratio of groove were obtained. The ablation technique proposed in this paper could
be a promising method for scribing silicon and plausibly other semiconductor materials at high removal rate with high cut
quality and negligible damage.

Keywords  Laser · Micromachining · Water · Pressure · Silicon

1 Introduction entire micro-part or structures fabricated by laser, so that

Lasers have widely been employed in the micromachining
of various materials due to their high processing resolution
and speed. The material removal mechanism of the process
is generally subjected to the melting and vaporization of
material irradiated by a high intensity laser beam. However,
thermal damage, such as cracks and microstructural changes
of work material, is a major concern of the process, and it
has to be minimized particularly in the fabrication of micro-
components. This is because the damage can apply to the
* Viboon Saetang
viboon.tan@kmutt.ac.th
1 ment of microjets towards the work surface [2–4]. The cool-
Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Industry
and Technology, Rajamangala University of Technology
Isan, Sakon Nakhon 47160, Thailand
2
Key Laboratory of Special Purpose Equipment
and Advanced Processing Technology, Ministry of Education
& Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang University of Technology,
Hangzhou 310014, China
3
Department of Production Engineering, Faculty
of Engineering, King Mongkut’s University of Technology
Thonburi, Bangkok 10140, Thailand
its functionality and quality are poor and unable to meet
the required characteristics. Although a proper selection of
laser processing condition can offer a high material removal
rate with minimum thermal damage, the damage still exists
in and around the laser-irradiated area at a significant level.
To minimize the damage, the workpiece has to be cooled
down during the process in order to reduce the excessive
heat induced by laser.
Underwater laser micromachining process has been
developed and applied for reducing thermal damage and
promoting material removal rate in the ablation of difficult-
to-machine materials [1]. Two major roles of water involved
in the process are (1) the cooling of workpiece and (2) the
increase in ablation rate through the mechanical impinge-
ing effect can be enhanced by reducing water temperature
[5] and/or increasing water flow velocity over the workpiece
surface during the ablation [6]. Using low water tempera-
ture can significantly reduce the thermal damage and heat-
affected zone (HAZ) occurred along the cut in the underwa-
ter laser micromachining of silicon [5]. However, when the
water temperature is lower than a certain degree, the cool-
ing effect turns to dominate the ablation performance. At

13
Vol.:(0123456789)
3162 The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3161–3169
too low temperature, the laser-irradiated material is hardly
vaporized from the work surface, and this in turn decreases
the material removal rate. The microjets formed during the
laser ablation in water can cause the mechanical shock pres-
sure in the order of 1.7 ± 0.3 GPa [7], and this can assist the
removal of molten and cut debris from the laser-ablated area.
In addition to the microjet formation, the use of ultrasound
can energize water during the laser ablation. This technique
is able to enhance the material removal performance and
diminish the deposition of cut debris as well as cavitation
bubbles on the work surface through the ultrasonic cleaning
mechanism [8–11].
A crucial limitation of underwater laser ablation is the
presence of gas bubbles generated during the process. The
bubbles are induced by the vaporization of water and work
material, and the bubble size is subject to laser energy and
thermal properties of work material [2, 3]. These bubbles
significantly cause optical disturbances to the incident laser
beam by means of reflection and refraction [12], thus dete-
riorating the laser beam quality for the ablation. By flowing
water across the workpiece surface in the underwater laser
ablation, the bubbles adhering to the work surface can be
flushed away [6, 13, 14]. However, new bubbles are repeat-
edly formed after each laser pulse and some can coalesce
to be a larger bubble [3]. This makes it difficult to blow all
of them at all times throughout the laser micromachining
process in water. Although using a higher water flow rate
is possible to blow the bubbles away from the workpiece
surface, the significant heat loss due to the forced convec-
tion importantly reduces the material removal rate, hence
requiring a higher laser power to compromise this tradeoff.
Instead of blowing off the bubbles, they can be atomized by
ultrasound in the ultrasonic-assisted underwater laser abla-
tion [10]. However, the amount of tiny bubbles suspending
in water turns to increase, and this can adversely scatter the
incident laser beam in water to some extent.
Another technique to minimize the bubble size and to
diminish the laser beam disturbance in water is to increase
the static pressure of water around the bubbles [15]. The
higher the pressure, the smaller the bubble is formed [16]. Li
et al. [17] noted that the bubble size in water can be reduced
by 50.3% when the positive pressure of 3.5 bar is applied.
The reduction of bubble size reduces the chance of bub-
bles to interfere with the incident laser beam in water, thus
minimizing the optical disturbances. By applying high water
pressure in the underwater laser ablation, the gas bubbles
caused by the vaporization could be smaller and/or of less
amount than the typical underwater technique. According
to the best of our knowledge and literature search, there has
been no study investigating the effect of water pressure on
the ablation performance in the underwater laser microma-
chining process. This paper therefore aims at this investiga-
tion to better the understanding of laser-water-work material
13
interactions, roles of water pressure, and removal mecha-
nism in the underwater laser micromachining process.
2 Materials and methods
Single-crystalline silicon was selected as a work sample in this
study since it has widely been used in micro-components and
semiconductor devices. A nanosecond pulse laser (IPG YLP-
1–100-30–30, Germany) emitting a wavelength of 1064 nm was
applied for grooving a silicon wafer. The laser machine used
in this work provided the maximum average power of 30 W,
pulse duration of 100 ns, and pulse repetition rate of 30 kHz. A
collimated laser beam with Gaussian distribution was focused
by a 254-mm f-theta lens. The focused laser beam was scanned
on the workpiece surface with a single straight line at a traverse
speed of 1 mm/s for producing a groove. The whole sample was
clamped inside a water chamber as shown in Fig. 1. Water was
pumped into the chamber and directionally flowed across the
workpiece surface at a constant rate of 4 l/min. The top side
of chamber had a 10-mm-thick fused silica window, allowing
the incident laser beam to reach the work surface for ablation.
The distance between the back side of window and workpiece
surface was 1.0 mm, where the heat convection and flushing
of cut debris took place during the ablation. The focused beam
diameter after passing through the glass window and water
layer was 68.81 μm.
Four different levels of water pressure, i.e., 10, 20, 30, and
40 bar were tested in this study to understand its influence
on the groove width, groove depth, width of heat-affected
zone (HAZ), and cut surface morphology. The width of HAZ
was taken from the edge of groove to the boundary of recast
or spatter deposition zone. In addition to the water pressure,
three levels of average laser power were examined in this
work as listed in Table 1. The selection of these processing
conditions was based on a number of preliminary tests and
our previous studies [5, 6]. The experiment was designed
with regard to the full-factorial scheme, and the number of
experimental runs was 12 with three replications. Each cut
sample was observed by a scanning electron microscope
(Hitachi SU3900 Series, Japan). The groove width, groove
Laser
Workpiece
Water out 1.0 mm Water in
4 l/min
Fixture
Fig. 1  Schematic of experimental setup for the underwater laser
micromachining process
The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3161–3169
Table 1  Parameters considered in the experiment
Process parameters Values
Water pressure (bar) 10, 20, 30, and 40
Average laser power (W) 20, 25, and 30
Laser traverse speed (mm/s) 1
Pulse repetition rate (kHz) 30
depth, and size of HAZ were measured by a confocal laser
microscope (Olympus LEXT OLS5000, Japan).
3 Results and discussion
The surface morphology of grooves produced by the under-
water laser micromachining process is depicted in Fig. 2.
The groove surface was substantially cleaner and smoother
with almost no recast deposition when the ablation was per-
formed under a higher water pressure. It is anticipated that
the high static pressure of water limits the expansion of gas
bubbles during the ablation in water. The bubbles are the
results of the vaporization of work material and the opti-
cal breakdown of water subjected to a high laser intensity.
The formation of these bubbles is not evitable in the laser
materials processing in liquids. As for the observation in
this study, the bubble size tended to be small under the high
water pressure environment. This thereby reduces the chance
of the laser beam to be interfered by the bubbles previously
created by preceding laser pulses as shown in Fig. 3. Thus,
the refraction of laser beam at the bubble surface unlikely
takes place, and this allows the beam to maintain its focusing
quality and position for a precise ablation throughout its pro-
cessing in water. In addition, the small bubbles adhering to
the workpiece surface occupy small footprint on the surface
where water can flush away the recast and cool down the
workpiece temperature more efficient than the large bubble
formation. This could be a reason for a clean groove surface
with negligible recast when ablating silicon under the high
water pressure.
The use of low water pressure resulted in the formation
of large gas bubbles at which the laser beam underwent
the dynamic refraction and reflection during the ablation
in water. The former effect adversely changes the focusing
position of laser beam, whereas the latter is conducive to
the loss of laser intensity in the ablation. The groove surface
obtained at low water pressure was also found to be rougher
than the ablation at high water pressure as shown in Fig. 2.
This is a result of the dynamic refraction and change of
focusing position during the process. The refracted distance
(L) of laser beam is subject to the incident angle of laser at
the bubble surface (θw) and bubble radius (Rb) as shown in
Fig. 4, and L is calculated by using [18]
3163
⎛ ⎞
⎜ nw ⎟
L = Rb sin 𝜃w ⎜1 − � ⎟
⎜ cos 𝜃w n2b − n2w sin2 𝜃w + nw sin2 𝜃w ⎟
⎝ ⎠
(1)
where nw and nb are refractive index of water and refrac-
tive index of gas in the bubble, respectively. By assuming
the hemisphere shape of gas bubble, the vertical distance of
laser beam path in the bubble (h) and the incident angle (θw)
are calculated by using:
√
h = R2b − x2 (2)
( )
x
𝜃w = tan−1 − (3)
h
where x is a distance between the consecutive laser pulses,
and it is given as
⎧ v − L ; laser moving to + x and �� v �� > �L �
⎪f n−1 � f � � n−1 �
� �
xn = ⎨ � �
⎪ − − Ln−1 ; laser moving to − x and �� v �� > ��Ln−1 ��
v
⎩ f �f �
(4)
n is laser pulse number. The angle of refraction in bubble
(θb) can be calculated with regard to Snell’s law, which is
( )
nw sin 𝜃w
𝜃b = sin−1 (5)
nb
According to Eq. (1), the greater the bubble size, the more
tendency of the laser beam is divergent from the designated
grooving path and in turn produces a rough or wavy groove
surface as a result. Such poor groove quality is normally
found in the underwater laser ablation. However, it is appar-
ent from Fig. 2 that the groove quality can significantly be
improved by performing the underwater laser ablation under
the high-pressure environment.
According to our previous study [3], the bubble size can
range from submillimeter to a few millimeters depending
on the applied laser energy. The use of high laser power
generally increases the bubble size, which thereby increases
the angle of refraction (θb) and refracted distance (L). How-
ever, the size of bubbles induced by the laser ablation in
water is dynamically changed with time, and a dense plasma
plume is also apparent inside the bubble [19]. These could
exaggerate the optical disturbances and add variances to the
dimensions of groove and its surface quality. Besides the
single bubble produced by each laser shot as depicted in
Fig. 3, the collapsing of these bubbles can introduce many
small bubbles in water [3], and these can also reflect, refract,
and absorb the incident laser beam in a random manner.
13
3164 The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3161–3169

Fig. 2  Grooves obtained after the laser ablation in water under the pressure of a, c 10 and b, d 40 bar and average laser power of a, b 20 and c, d 30 W

13
The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3161–3169
Fig. 3  Optical interaction
between laser and gas bub-
ble formed under the different
levels of water pressure
Since the collapsing is very dynamic, the size, shape, and
location of bubbles are difficult to be predicted by the ana-
lytical approach. However, the bubble size and lifetime are
anticipated to be decreased under the high-pressure environ-
ment [17], and this is affirmed by our findings through the
analyses of optical refraction and groove surface quality.
The interference of bubbles to the laser beam in water can
therefore be kept at minimum, and a better cut surface qual-
ity is achievable compared to the typical underwater laser
micromachining process.
In addition to the quality of groove surface, the width and
depth of groove as well as the width of heat-affected zone
(HAZ) were quantified in this study. Analysis of variance
(ANOVA) was applied to statistically determine the signifi-
cance of the tested parameters towards the groove dimen-
sions and size of HAZ, and the ANOVA results for these
responses are listed in Table 2. The results indicated that
Fig. 4  Laser beam refraction
caused by gas bubble in water:
a 1st bubble formation; b laser
beam refraction induced by
the 1st bubble; c 2nd bubble
formation
3165
the change of average laser power significantly changed the
sizes of groove and HAZ (p-value < 0.05), whereas only the
groove depth and width of HAZ were affected by the change
of water pressure. This implies that using high water pres-
sure can facilitate the increased groove depth and reduced
HAZ without significantly enlarging the groove width. A
high aspect ratio of groove was thereby achievable when
ablating silicon in the pressurized water.
The average value and standard deviation of groove width,
groove depth, and HAZ width obtained under the different
processing conditions are plotted in Fig. 5a–c. The aspect
ratio of groove was calculated by dividing the width into
the depth, and it is plotted in Fig. 5d. The results showed
that a large and deep groove was produced by using high
laser power. The width of HAZ also increased with the
average laser power applied in the ablation. This is associ-
ated with the high heat energy that melts and vaporizes the
13
3166 The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3161–3169

Table 2  Analysis of variance results for groove width, groove depth, and width of heat-affected zone
Source DF Groove width Groove depth Width of heat-affected zone
Adj SS Adj MS P-value Adj SS Adj MS P-value Adj SS Adj MS P-value

Model 5 2979.93 595.99 0.013 25,745.1 5149.0 0.000 620.41 124.082 0.003
Linear 5 2979.93 595.99 0.013 25,745.1 5149.0 0.000 620.41 124.082 0.003
Water pressure 3 43.00 14.33 0.901 2816.0 938.7 0.003 489.56 163.185 0.002
Laser power 2 2936.93 1468.46 0.002 22,929.1 11,464.6 0.000 130.85 65.426 0.023
Error 6 459.68 76.61 336.4 56.1 52.29 8.716
Total 11 3439.60 26,081.5 672.70
S = 8.75290, R-sq(adj) = 75.50% S = 7.48761, R-sq(adj) = 97.64% S = 2.95224, R-sq(adj) = 85.75%,

DF degree of freedom, Adj SS adjusted sum of squares, Adj MS adjusted mean squares, P-value a probability that measures the evidence against
the null hypothesis, S standard deviation, R-sq(adj) adjusted R-sq

laser-irradiated material in a large area. A large groove with
large HAZ is thereby obtained as a result. When a higher
water pressure was employed, the size of gas bubbles and
laser scattering in water was reduced. This allows the laser
beam to travel in water and reach the workpiece surface with
less scattering by the bubbles. The contribution of water pres-
sure towards the material removal rate was discernable when
the applied pressure was equal to or greater than 20 bar at
which the groove depth substantially increased. Based on
the compression of gas bubbles under the high static pres-
sure and the analysis of optical refraction described earlier,
the water pressure of 20 bar could be a threshold where the
bubble size is shrunk and small enough to not interfere with
or impede the incident laser beam in water. This thus allows
the laser beam to maintain its focusing position and quality
for deepening the groove. However, the threshold of 20 bar
is only valid for the laser traverse speed of 1 mm/s and laser
pulse repetition rate of 30 kHz tested in this study. Since the
incident angle of laser at the bubble surface (θw) is a func-
tion of v and f as noted in Eqs. (3 and 4), the threshold could
be lower than 20 bar when using higher laser traverse speed
or lower pulse repetition rate at which the distance between
the consecutive laser pulses (xn) is larger than the bubble
radius (Rb). When the water pressure was greater than the

Fig. 5  Measures of groove and 140 240

heat-affected zone caused by
using the different combinations 120 200
of laser power and water pres-
100
sure: a groove width; b groove
Groove width (μm)

Groove depth (μm)

160
depth; c width of heat-affected 80
zone; d aspect ratio of groove 120
60
80
40

20 Average laser power (W) 40 Average laser power (W)

20 25 30 20 25 30
0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
(a) Water pressure (bar) (b) Water pressure (bar)

80 2
Average laser power (W) 1.8
Width of heat-affected zone (μm)

20 25 30 1.6
Aspect ratio of groove

60
1.4
1.2
40 1
0.8
0.6
20
0.4
Average laser power (W)
0.2 20 25 30
0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
(c) Water pressure (bar) (d) Water pressure (bar)

13
The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3161–3169 3167

Fig. 6  Groove profiles obtained

after using the different process- 0 0
ing conditions: a 20-W laser -50
-50
power with 10-bar water pres-

Depth (µm)
Depth (µm)
sure; b 20-W laser power with -100 -100
40-bar water pressure; c 30-W
laser power with 10-bar water -150 -150
pressure; d 30-W laser power
-200 -200
with 40-bar water pressure
Laser power: 20 W Laser power: 20 W
-250 -250
Water pressure: 10 bar Water pressure: 40 bar
-300 -300
0 150 300 450 600 0 150 300 450 600
(a) Distance (µm) (b) Distance (µm)

0 0

-50 -50
Depth (µm)

Depth (µm)
-100 -100

-150 -150

-200 -200
Laser power: 30 W Laser power: 30 W
-250 -250
Water pressure: 10 bar Water pressure: 40 bar
-300 -300
0 150 300 450 600 0 150 300 450 600
(c) Distance (µm) (d) Distance (µm)

(a)

(b)

Fig. 7  EDS spectrum of grooves produced by using the average laser power of 30 W and water pressure of (1) 10 bar and (2) 40 bar

13
3168 The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3161–3169
threshold of 20 bar, there was no significant improvement
for the groove depth as shown in Fig. 5b. This is plausibly
because the process already reaches the status of no bubble
disturbance, so that the laser can perform its maximum capa-
bility for the ablation in water.
As per the results shown in Fig. 5d, the highest aspect
ratio of groove is 1.7 when using the average laser power
of 30 W and water pressure of 40 bar. Under this condition,
the width of HAZ was only 26 μm which was smaller than
that of 10-bar condition by 36%. Some samples of groove
profile caused by using the different processing conditions
are depicted in Fig. 6, noting that the groove in silicon is
substantially deeper when applying higher water pressure in
the underwater laser micromachining process.
Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) was also
used in this study to detect and compare chemical composi-
tion on the groove surface produced by using the 30-W laser
ablation at 10- and 40-bar water pressures. The EDS spec-
trums are shown in Fig. 7, noting that the peak of oxygen
is low when ablating silicon under the high water pressure.
A greater amount of oxygen detected on the laser-ablated
surface could imply a more amount of oxidized recast on the
surface. According to these results, the groove surface qual-
ity and removal rate of silicon were significantly improved
with negligible damage when the laser micromachining pro-
cess was performed in the pressurized water.
4 Conclusions
This study investigated the influence of water pressure and
average laser power in the underwater laser micromachining
of single-crystalline silicon. The width and depth of grooves
as well as the size of heat-affected zone were measured and
discussed together with the analysis of optical refraction in
water. The findings and significance of this work can be
drawn as follows:
1. A clean and deep groove with the maximum aspect
ratio of 1.7 was made by performing the laser ablation
in pressurized water. Using the water pressure of 20 bar
was able to compress the gas bubbles whose size was
small enough to not interfere with the incident laser
beam in water. This can avoid the dynamic refraction
and reflection of laser beam at the bubble surface, so
that the laser beam can maintain its focusing position
and quality for a precise ablation.
2. When the water pressure was greater than a certain
threshold, the groove depth as well as material removal
rate was not substantially improved unless applying a
higher laser power. According to the analysis of optical
refraction at the bubble surface, the threshold could fur-
13
ther be reduced by using high laser traverse speed and/
or low laser pulse repetition rate.
3. Recast depositing on and nearby the groove was found
to be minimum when the ablation was performed in the
pressurized water. EDS spectrums revealed low oxy-
gen peak on the groove surface produced by the aid of
40-bar water pressure. This could be implied that the
oxidized recast was less when the high water pressure
was applied.
4. The findings of this work have brought another new
micromachining technique and its potential to improve
the cut quality and material removal rate by applying
high water pressure to the underwater laser microma-
chining process. The proposed technique could be a
promising method for scribing silicon and possibly other
materials at high removal rate with high cut quality and
less damage.
Author contribution  Wisan Charee: conceptualization, methodol-
ogy, investigation, formal analysis, validation, visualization, writing
— original draft preparation. Huan Qi: validation, writing — review
and editing. Viboon Saetang: conceptualization, methodology, formal
analysis, writing — review and editing, supervision.
Funding  The Rajamangala University of Technology Isan (No.
SKC2562REV114); National Key Research and Development Pro-
gram of China (No. 2021YFE0110300); Thailand Science Research
and Innovation (TSRI) under Fundamental Fund 2022 (Project:
Advanced Materials and Manufacturing for Applications in New
S-curve Industries)”.
Declarations 
Competing interests  The authors declare no competing interests.
References
1. Guo B, Zhang J, Wu M, Zhao Q, Liu H, Monier A, Wang J (2020)
Water assisted pulsed laser machining of micro-structured surface
on CVD diamond coating tools. J Manuf Process 56:591–601.
https://​doi.​org/​10.​1016/j.​jmapro.​2020.​04.​066
2. Tamura A, Sakka T, Fukami K, Ogata YH (2013) Dynamics
of cavitation bubbles generated by multi-pulse laser irradia-
tion of a solid target in water. Appl Phys A Mater Sci Process
112(1):209–213
3. Charee W, Tangwarodomnukun V (2018) Dynamic features of
bubble induced by a nanosecond pulse laser in still and flowing
water. Opt Laser Technol 100:230–243. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1016/j.​
optla​stec.​2017.​10.​019
4. Soliman W, El-Ansary S, Badr Y (2018) Impact of liquid medium
on laser ablation mechanism: surface heating and cooling. Lasers
in Manufacturing and Materials Processing 5(4):430–438. https://​
doi.​org/​10.​1007/​s40516-​018-​0073-3
5. Charee W, Tangwarodomnukun V (2020) Laser ablation of silicon
in water at different temperatures. The International Journal of
The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3161–3169
Advanced Manufacturing Technology 107(5):2333–2344. https://​
doi.​org/​10.​1007/​s00170-​020-​05182-4
6. Charee W, Tangwarodomnukun V, Dumkum C (2015) Laser abla-
tion of silicon in water under different flow rates. Int J Adv Manuf
Technol 78(1):19–29. https://d​ oi.o​ rg/1​ 0.1​ 007/s​ 00170-0​ 14-6​ 625-6
7. Nguyen TTP, Tanabe R, Ito Y (2014) Effects of an absorptive
coating on the dynamics of underwater laser-induced shock pro-
cess. Appl Phys A Mater Sci Process 116(3):1109–1117. https://​
doi.​org/​10.​1007/​s00339-​013-​8193-2
8. Kang B, Woo Kim G, Yang M, Cho SH, Park JK (2012) A study
on the effect of ultrasonic vibration in nanosecond laser machin-
ing. Opt Lasers Eng 50(12):1817–1822. https://d​ oi.​org/​10.1​ 016/j.​
optla​seng.​2012.​06.​013
9. Wang H, Zhu S, Xu G, Zhou W, Li L, Zhang DH, Ren N, Xia
K, Shi C (2018) Influence of ultrasonic vibration on percussion
drilling performance for millisecond pulsed Nd:YAG laser. Opt
Laser Technol 104:133–139. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1016/j.​optla​stec.​
2018.​02.​023
10. Zhou J, Xu R, Jiao H, Bao J-d, Liu Q-y, Long Y-h (2020) Study
on the mechanism of ultrasonic-assisted water confined laser
micromachining of silicon. Opt Lasers Eng 132:106118. https://​
doi.​org/​10.​1016/j.​optla​seng.​2020.​106118
11. Sun X, Zhou J, Duan J-A, Du H, Cui D, Hu Y (2018) Experi-
mental research on ultrasound-assisted underwater femtosecond
laser drilling. Laser Part Beams 36(4):487–493. https://​doi.​org/​
10.​1017/​s0263​03461​80005​38
12. Zhang D, Gökce B, Sommer S, Streubel R, Barcikowski S (2016)
Debris-free rear-side picosecond laser ablation of thin germanium
wafers in water with ethanol. Appl Surf Sci 367:222–230. https://​
doi.​org/​10.​1016/j.​apsusc.​2016.​01.​071
13. Feng W, Guo J, Yan W, Wan YC, Zheng H (2019) Deep channel
fabrication on copper by multi-scan underwater laser machining.
Opt Laser Technol 111:653–663. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1016/j.​optla​stec.​
2018.​10.​046
3169
14. Wang X, Huang Y, Xu B, Xing Y, Kang M (2019) Comparative
assessment of picosecond laser induced plasma micromachining
using still and flowing water. Opt Laser Technol 119:105623.
https://​doi.​org/​10.​1016/j.​optla​stec.​2019.​105623
15. Pan Y, Hou Z, Qu N (2019) Improvement in accuracy of micro-
dimple arrays prepared by micro-electrochemical machining with
high-pressure hydrostatic electrolyte. The International Journal of
Advanced Manufacturing Technology 100(5):1767–1777. https://​
doi.​org/​10.​1007/​s00170-​018-​2822-z
16. Martí-López L, Ocaña R, Piñeiro E, Asensio A (2011) Laser peen-
ing induced shock waves and cavitation bubbles in water studied
by optical schlieren visualization. In: Physics Procedia 442–451.
https://​doi.​org/​10.​1016/j.​phpro.​2011.​03.​055
17. Li B-b, Zhang H-c, Lu J, Ni X-w (2011) Experimental investiga-
tion of the effect of ambient pressure on laser-induced bubble
dynamics. Opt Laser Technol 43(8):1499–1503. https://​doi.​org/​
10.​1016/j.​optla​stec.​2011.​05.​016
18. Wuttisarn T, Tangwarodomnukun V, Dumkum C (2020) Laser
micromachining of titanium alloy in water and ice at different
temperatures. Opt Laser Technol 125:106024. https://​doi.​org/​10.​
1016/j.​optla​stec.​2019.​106024
19. Zheng C, Shen H (2022) Ablation mechanism in underwater drill-
ing by an ultrafast laser with pulse energy below the water break-
down threshold. J Manuf Process 73:354–363. https://​doi.​org/​10.​
1016/j.​jmapro.​2021.​11.​020
Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under
a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s);
author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article
is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and
applicable law.
13