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Micro-machining with ultrashort laser pulses:
From basic understanding to technical applications
Friedrich Dausingera, Helmut Hügela, Vitali Konovb
a
Stuttgart University, Institut für Strahlwerkzeuge (IFSW),
Pfaffenwaldring 43, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany1
b
General Physics Institute, Moscow, 119991,Vavilova str., 38, Russia2
ABSTRACT
Ultrashort pulses appear very promising for material removal with ultra high precision. Initial
investigations showed, however, several unexpected quality problems such as formation of recast, ripples and irregular hole shapes even in the femtosecond pulse regime. After describing
the problems this contribution will present some progress in fundamental understanding of the
ultrafast ablation process. On the basis of this knowledge technical means have been developed
allowing to achieve an unprecedented level of accuracy at acceptable expenses. The latter being
strongly influenced by the shortness of the laser pulse, a comparison between pico- and femtosecond regime will be presented.
Keywords: Ablation, drilling, micro-machining, femtosecond technology
1. INTRODUCTION
Soon after the invention of the laser it was recognized that the focused beam can be used as a tool for material removal.
The number of razor blades a laser pulse can penetrate was taken as a measure for its pulse energy in “Gillette” units.
With industrial drilling lasers offering pulse energy values of some Joules metal plates thicker than one millimeter can
be drilled in less than one millisecond. A lack of geometrical accuracy and other quality problems resulting from recast
material strongly limited the number of industrial applications, however.
In mechanical metal cutting techniques it is a common procedure to increase accuracy by reducing the volume of the
chip. An analogous approach in laser material removal results in a breaking up the ablation process in a multitude of
steps, see Figure 1. This leads from single pulse drilling to the well known techniques percussion and trepanning, the
latter being a percussion drilling process followed by a cutting procedure. A further step to increased accuracy is the socalled helical drilling method in which the ablation front penetrates the work piece on a helical path1. In the case of
material removal with lasers the ”chip” volume is determined by penetration depth and spot diameter. The penetration
to which a laser pulse interacts with material is determined by optical and thermal penetration:
(1).
l = lα + lth
In dielectrics optical penetration depth dominates over the thermal one, generally, and is a strong function of the wave
length 1. In metals, on the other hand, the optical penetration depth turns out to be smaller than a tenth of the wavelength
and can be neglected in most cases. The penetration depth is then determined by the thermal penetration depth which
depends on thermal diffusivity and pulse duration τH :
(2).
l = 2 κ ⋅ τ for τ > 10 ps
th
1
2
H
H
[email protected]
[email protected]
1
single pulse
trepanning
percussion
pulse energy, pulse duration
helical drilling
accuracy
Figure 1 Process strategies to achieve high accuracy in laser drilling [1]
From equation (2) it appears straightforward to reduce the pulse duration in order to increase accuracy. It has to be
mentioned, however, that this relationship is based on classical heat conduction theory which is no longer valid for ultrashort time scale, see next paragraph.
At this point it has to be made clear, that lα and lth are qualitative values, only. The quantitative values for the depth to
which material is molten or vaporized depend on the energy density transmitted to it, additionally.
The same is true for the lateral dimension of the “chip”. In rare cases only the focal diameter df coincides accidentally
with the diameter of the ablated zone which for a Gaussian beam is determined by the threshold for ablation Hs and the
energy density in relationship to it:
d Abl = d f ⋅
H
1
ln
⋅
2 HS
(3).
The edges of the beam with energy density below the threshold for material removal may act on the work piece in an
unwanted way by causing thermal damage. A steep limitation of the beam is desirable for a treatment with high quality,
therefore. On the other hand, the sharpness of the laser beam may be affected by laser induced plasmas, be they a material vapor plasma near to the ablation front or a gas breakdown in front of the work piece or in the drilled capillary.
Tönshoff et al. 2 discussed an optical effect on the laser beam occurring near to its focus in front of the work piece
which they explained as filamentation. This resulted in a pronounced ripple structure on the wall of a boring which
could be avoided or at least weakened by drilling in vacuum or helium atmosphere. In any case a radial widening of the
interaction zone increasing with laser intensity is to be expected.
So far it can be summarized that from a reduction of the laser parameters pulse duration, focal diameter and pulse energy a decrease of the “chip” volume can be expected which can be used to increase the accuracy of a removal process,
see Figure 1. On the other hand, the phase composition of the removed material strongly depends on energy density.
Figure 2 showing the results of a calculation3 based on von Allmen´s piston model4 makes clear, that with increasing
intensity the share of vaporized material strongly increases at the expense of molten material. From that point of view
higher energy density appears favorable for achieving high accuracy, to some extend a contradiction to the previous
finding.
2
removal rate in mm³/s
800
Al
total
600
vapor
melt
400
200
0
1,0E+05
1,0E+07
1,0E+09
intensity in W/cm²
Figure 2 Material removal calculated for aluminum with piston
model [3,4]
Figure 3 Burr height of shallow structures in steel. The number
of scans was selected to obtain an average ablation depth of
40 µm.
2. FUNDAMENTAL UNDERSTANDING
2.1 Thermal effects
Often the advantage of ultrashort laser pulses is asserted by comparing drilling results in comparison with those
achieved with nanosecond pulses. The nanosecond holes exhibit a large amount of recast material which is not visible in
the femtosecond case2. On the contrary, initial trials in our groups revealed an unexpected large amount of recast material in drilling and surface structuring of metals, which decreases with pulse duration but did not reach a zero value even
at a pulse duration of 120 fs, see Figure 3.
This experimental finding which was checked for possible errors like long underground pulses is supported by calculations with an analytical model3. Based on von Allmen´s stationary piston model4 the new development now allows to
investigate transient processes even at ultrashort time scale. At a pulse duration shorter than about 10 ps the classical
heat conduction theory based on the assumption that a material can be characterized by one temperature, only, is no
longer valid. In that case the time for electron-lattice interaction which is in the order of several picoseconds has to be
taken into account. During laser pulses shorter than this relaxation time the laser energy deposited primarily in the electronic system can not be transferred to the lattice. The consequence of this is, that the melt depth produced by a laser
pulse approaches a minimum value of several tenths of a micrometer, see Figure 4 5, instead of vanishing completely
when the pulse duration is decreased.
It is worth to note that the maximum melt depth is achieved long after the end of the laser pulse. The time during which
the material remains molten is in the order of several tens of nanosecond, the evaporation stops after a few nanoseconds,
see Figure 4. That means that for ultrashort pulses below typically 10 ps the characteristic process times are nearly independent of the pulse duration and still in the nanosecond regime!
The pressure built up by vaporization accelerates the melt layer to velocity values in the range of 100 m/s. During a
typical time span in which a material stays molten of 10 ns it moves about 1 µm, only. It needs many pulses, therefore,
3
Target
2.5 ns
5.5 ns
Laser pulse
500 µm
100
Time [ns]
2
Solidification ts
Thickness dm
1
Vaporization tv
-11
10
-10
-9
10
10
Pulse duration τH [s]
-8
10
Max. melt thickness dm [µm]
2
H = 10 J/cm
1
-12
10
20 ns
48 ns
98 ns
198 ns
496 ns
3
Al
10
9 ns
0
-7
10
Figure 4 Vaporization and solidification times as well as maximum melt thickness for the ablation of aluminum with different
pulse durations (H = 10 J/cm2).
Figure 5 Temporal evolution of the vapor plume after irradiation of an aluminum target with a 500 fs pulse (λ = 800 nm, Q =
2
500 µJ, df ≈ 18 µm, H ≈ 200 J/cm )
to remove molten material away from the structure to be machined and accumulation of recast layers is very probable.
For a precise micro-machining process one needs process strategies helping to avoid such accumulation of sub-micron
layers.
In the model used for the above considerations ablation takes place by vaporization. In the context of ultrashort pulses
one may speculate that this is no longer true. The intense energy transfer to the electrons might cause their separation
from the bulk material leaving behind ions which repel each other heavily and leave the bulk material. This so-called
Coulomb explosion is a non-thermal ablation mechanism, from which melt-free material removal could be expected.
Stoian et al.6 investigated femtosecond ablation of dielectrics and metals with time of flight measurements. They
pointed out that in dielectrics the material was partly removed by Coulomb explosion, partly thermally. In metals no
hint for this effect was detected, on the other hand. From their finding one can conclude that in metals ablation even
with femtosecond pulses is essentially of thermal nature.
Figure 5 shows the effect of a single femtosecond pulse long after its end. The pictures were obtained with shadowgraphy by illuminating the atmosphere in front of the work piece with a probe laser wave length which is resonantly absorbed in aluminum vapor. Obviously the metal vapor plume develops at a time scale many orders of magnitude longer
than the laser pulse. This means, that even if the ablation process would be non-thermal, it is followed by a long lasting
expansion of hot material which certainly affects the work piece thermally.
4
Scattered radiation TS [%]
2.2 Optical effects
One of the advantages expected from the use of ultra-short pulses is the absence of a laser induced plasma affecting
beam propagation which can not develop during the ultra-short pulse duration. Figure 6 makes clear, however, that also
with femtoseconds a strong deformation of the laser beam can be observed. The picture was taken from a screen positioned 60 cm behind the focus in air. Around the original beam marked in the left picture a colored ring structure is observed which increases in intensity and diameter when the laser energy density is raised. A more detailed description of
this phenomenon which is assumed to be caused by cold atmospheric plasma is given in7; in this context only its influence of it on the energy distribution will be considered.
100
80
60
260 J/cm
2
40
20
0
65 J/cm
0
1
2
3
2
4
5
6
Pulse duration τH [ps]
Figure 6 Distortion of original beam (dotted circle) 60 cm behind Figure 7 Energy distribution atmospheric plasma. Shown is
focus in air at ultrashort pulse duration (120 fs). Left: 80 J/cm², the share of scattered light (λ = 800 nm, fp = 1 kHz, df ≈ 18µm,
right: 260 J/cm²
in air)
Figure 7 reveals, that a quite large amount of the beam energy is scattered into the ring structure. At 125 fs less than 50
% are left in the diameter of the original beam. At an energy density of 65 J/cm2, the percentage of scattered energy
decreases with the pulse duration reaching zero slightly above 5 ps. At 260 J/cm2 the share of scattered energy remains
above 50 % in the whole investigated range of pulse duration.
Transmission Thot [%]
100
260 J/cm
2
95
90
85
80
75
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
Pulse duration τH [ps]
Figure 8 Transmission through atmospheric plasma (λ = 800
nm, fp = 1 kHz, df ≈ 18 µm, in air).
6
100
300
500
800
1400
2500
4000
8000
Figure 9 Holes drilled in steel with varying pulses of
distorted beam (τH = 125 fs, λ = 800 nm, fp = 1 kHz, df ≈ 18 µm,
H ≈ 330 J/cm², in air)
5
Figure 8 shows the total transmission through the area near the focus where the scattering effect occurs. At the shortest
pulse duration 125 fs no loss could be detected. In contrast to this more than 20 % of energy loss are observed near 5 ps.
It can not be expected that such a strong deformation of the beam remains without consequences for the shape of a hole
to be drilled. The effect on a steel plate treated with a series of drilling procedures with increasing number of pulses can
be clearly seen in Figure 9. Around a central hole with largest depth, side holes are drilled by the scattered part of the
beam. At high enough pulse numbers ablation by scattered light leads to full penetration, as well, causing an overall
widening of the hole.
From Figures 7 and 8 one may conclude, that the scattering effect can be weakened or even avoided by choosing a large
enough pulse duration of some picoseconds and by decreasing the energy density. The latter measure has an unwanted
side effect, however, as can be seen in Figure 10 showing that the volume ablation rate strongly increases with energy
density. The choice of a low energy density slows down the drilling process such that it is no longer economically feasible.
10000
Av. ablation rate [µm/pulse]
100000
1000 mbar
1 mbar
1000
100
10
1
1
10
100
2
1.0
300
Air
960 hPa
Vacuum
< 1 hPa
0.8
0.6
200
0.4
100
0.2
0.0
1
10
100
Hole diameter [µm]
3
Volume
inµµm³
/ pulse
Volumeablation
ablationrate
rate,
m /pulse
Another way to avoid scattering is to reduce pressure, see Figure 11. While at atmospheric pressure a strong widening is
observed above 10 J/cm2, the hole diameter at reduced pressure increases only slightly following equation 3 for a Gaussian beam. As soon as the hole widening is avoided, the linear drilling rate steadily increases with the energy density.
On the contrary, a saturation is observed when widening happens at atmospheric pressure. As can be observed from
Figure 10, pressure does not affect at the volume ablation rate at the used short pulse duration of 125 fs. Obviously the
scattering effect is not energy absorbing at this pulse duration, an observation which is in agreement with the finding
described in Figure 8.
0
2
Energy density H [J/cm ]
Energy
J/cm²
Energydensity
density,inJ/cm
Figure 10 Volume ablation rate (τH = 110 fs, λ = 800 nm, df =
18 µm, steel)
Figure 11 Effect of pressure on drilling rate and diameter depending on energy density (Steel, 30 µm, τH = 110 fs, λ = 800
nm, fp = 1 kHz, df ≈ 18 µm, in air)
Besides widening a further optical impact on hole quality is displayed in Figure 12, namely the formation of ripples.
The start of the ripples at the entrance of the hole is probably caused by the scattering effect discussed above. Their
propagation through the hole depends on the orientation of the beam polarization relative to the wall. At p-polarization,
the ripples disappear after a short distance. At s-polarization, on the contrary, they propagate through the whole boring.
A recipe to suppress ripples is to maintain p-polarization around the whole circumference, see next chapter.
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3. TECHNICAL CONSEQUENCES
Based on the fundamental understanding of material removal with ultra-short pulses technical means have been developed in order to increase efficiency and quality.
3.1 Avoiding of burr formation
From the discussion of the previous chapter one can conclude that the burr observed at the edges of ablated structures,
see Figure 3, is produced by accumulation of thin layers of melt accelerated by vapor pressure to the side. A simple
means following from this is to reduce acceleration by reducing the energy density to a value slightly above the threshold for ablation. A confirmation of this conclusion is given in8, see Figure 13. The disadvantage is a very low ablation
volume per pulse which raises the call for lasers with very high repetition rate.
3.2 Helical drilling
An energy density slightly above the ablation threshold is effective only for very shallow structures. The minimal required energy density strongly increases with hole depth1. For high aspect ratio drilling the helical drilling procedure
originally developed for nanosecond pulses has turned out to be useful also in the ultra-short regime, already9.
shift of the
1st wedge
∆
1st wedge
2nd wedge
rotation of the
4th wedge
3rd wedge
4th wedge
φ
lens
Figure 12 Ripple formation in helical drilling with linearly polarized ultrashort pulsed laser (τH = 120 fs, λ = 800 nm, fp = 1
kHz, df ≈ 18 µm, H = 310 J/cm², in air, steel, 0,5 mm)
sample
rh(φ)
Figure 13 Cross sections through groves in steel ablated by 2 ps
pulses with mean pulse energy densities of 175 J/cm² (left) and
4 J/cm² (right).
ω
γ(∆)
Figure 14 Optical setup for trepanning and helical drilling
allowing to control diameter and conicity of boring
In the light of the theoretical findings described above an explanation for the reduction of recast observed when using
this method can be found: In helical drilling the melt can move laterally (and is then ablated by following pulses) and
does not need to be moved axially on the long way to the hole entrance as would be the case in percussion drilling.
7
ratio of diameters dout
Durchmesserverhältnis
Ain
/d
E
Durchmesserverhältnis
ddA/d
/d
E
An appropriate optical setup, e.g. the one shown in Figure 14 allows not only to choose the helix diameter but also the
inclination angle of the beam. At perpendicular incidence (inclination angle γ = 0) more than 10 s are needed to achieve
a cylindrical hole with the used set of parameters, see Figure 14. For the shortest pulse duration 120 fs, cylindricity can
not be reached under these conditions. If an inclination angle of 4° is chosen, on the other hand, cylindricity is reached
for all pulse duration values at about half the time. Additionally a negative conicity which is desirable for certain applications can be achieved easily, see Figure 15. The addition of a quarter wave plate to the optical setup allows to maintain the polarization in the p-orientation which turned out to be beneficial for avoiding ripples and non-circular hole exit
shape. An additional benefit is to minimize reflections at the hole wall which may lead to a deflection of the hole
propagation and finally to an unwanted deformation of the hole exit.
1,8
2,9 ps
2 ps
1 ps
500 fs
120 fs
1,6
1,4
1,2
1,0
0,8
0,6
0,4
inclination angle γ = 0°
0,2
0,0
0
5
10
15
20
25
Durchmesserverhältnis
A/d
Durchmesserverhältnis
dd
/d
ratio of diameters dout
/d
A
E E
in
drilling
timein[s]
Bohrdauer
s
1,8
2,9 ps
1,6
2 ps
1,4
1 ps
500 fs
1,2
120 fs
1,0
0,8
0,6
0,4
inclination angle γ = 4°
0,2
0,0
0
5
10
15
20
25
drilling
timein[s]
Bohrdauer
s
Figure 15 Influence of drilling time and pulse duration on
hole cylindricity. Above: with perpendicular incidence; below:
with an inclination of 4°.
Figure 16 Entrance (above) and exit (below) of a hole
drilled through 0,5 mm steel plate with an experimental picosecond laser (τH = 5 ps, λ = 1030 nm, fp = 10 kHz, Q =
600 µJ)
Figure 16 evidences what can be achieved with helical drilling and p-polarization control. The exit appears perfectly
circular with sharp edges. Around the entrance a surface structure is observed affecting the sharpness of the edges. This
can be attributed to the high pulse energy used in the experiment causing scattering effects even at the pulse duration of
5 ps what could be avoided when applying vacuum. It is expected that in further investigations with reduced energy and
a more stable laser system these flaws can be avoided.
3.3 Optimal pulse duration
For applications in machining laser systems have to be reliable, robust and affordable. Since technical effort for building laser sources increases with shortening the pulse duration, the latter should be only as short as necessary for
achieving a satisfying result.
8
The theoretical findings of chapter 2 point out that below 10 ps a further reduction of pulse duration is expected to be
without significant effect on thermal behavior, at least as far as metals are considered.
On the other hand, the observed scattering effect increases when the pulse duration is lowered beneath 5 ps, see Figure
7. Nonlinear effects which offer essential advantages in many applications of ultrashort pulses, especially when treating
transparent materials, turned out to be quite disturbing in the case of metal ablation.
From all these considerations a pulse duration near to 5 to 10 ps appears to be optimal for micro-machining of metals,
see figure 17.
nonlinear effects
precision
thermal effects
10 ns
1 ns
100 ps
10 ps
1 ps
100 fs
pulse duration
Figure 17 Precision depending on pulse duration in drilling
of metals
4. CONCLUSIONS
The recipe to increase the quality of material removal processes by reducing the pulse duration to the femtosecond
range has turned out to be less curative than expected. Fundamental investigations revealed three sources for remaining
flaws
– strong deformation of laser beam near focus,
– deflection of s-polarized radiation at hole wall,
– essentially thermal nature of ablation process even in femtosecond range.
Technical measures have been developed to overcome the problems. Like in drilling with nanosecond pulses the helical
technique turned out to be efficient for strongly reducing formation of recast. An optical setup has been developed offering the possibilities to vary hole diameter and conicity in a wide range and to maintain p-polarization.
A pulse duration near 5 to 10 ps is regarded as optimal to minimize thermal damage on one hand and to avoid disturbing
nonlinear effects, on the other hand. For high aspect ratio drilling a vacuum atmosphere allows to apply higher energy
density values and still to avoid flaws.
For shallow structures energy density values of about 5 J/cm2 offer the possibility to avoid dross formation. Lasers with
very high repetition rate are required then in order to achieve satisfying productivity.
9
5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors wish to thank their coworkers Detlef Breitling, Christian Föhl, Andreas Ruf and Michael Weikert from
IFSW in Stuttgart as well as Serge Garnov, Sergei Klimentov and Taras Kononenko from A.M. Prokhorov General
Physics Instiute in Moscow for their contributions and the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) for
funding within the project PRIMUS (13N771016). The author is responsible for the content.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
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