Femtosecond laser micromachining can be used either to remove materials or to change a material's properties, and can be applied to both absorptive and transparent substances. Over the past decade, this technique has been used in a broad range of applications, from waveguide fabrication to cell ablation. This review describes the physical mechanisms and the main experimental parameters involved in the femtosecond laser micromachining of transparent materials, and important emerging applications of the technology. Interactions between laser and matter are fascinating and have found a wide range of applications. This article gives an overview of the fundamental physical mechanisms in the processing of transparent materials using ultrafast lasers, as well as important emerging applications of the technology.

Femtosecond laser micromachining in transparent materials

Fibre lasers in the mid-infrared regime are useful for a diverse range of fields, including chemical and biomedical sensing, military applications and materials processing. This Review summarizes the different rare-earth cations and host materials used in mid-infrared fibre laser technology, and discusses the future applications and challenges for the field.

Towards high-power mid-infrared emission from a fibre laser

The unique characteristics of ultrafast lasers, such as picosecond and femtosecond lasers, have opened up new avenues in materials processing that employ ultrashort pulse widths and extremely high peak intensities. Thus, ultrafast lasers are currently used widely for both fundamental research and practical applications. This review describes the characteristics of ultrafast laser processing and the recent advancements and applications of both surface and volume processing. Surface processing includes micromachining, micro- and nanostructuring, and nanoablation, while volume processing includes two-photon polymerization and three-dimensional (3D) processing within transparent materials. Commercial and industrial applications of ultrafast laser processing are also introduced, and a summary of the technology with future outlooks are also given. Scientists in Asia have reviewed the role of ultrafast lasers in materials processing. Koji Sugioka from RIKEN in Japan and Ya Cheng from the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics in China describe how femtosecond and picosecond lasers can be used to perform useful tasks in both surface and volume processing. Such lasers can cut, drill and ablate a variety of materials with high precision, including metals, semiconductors, ceramics and glasses. They can also polymerize organic materials that contain a suitable photosensitizer and can three-dimensionally process inside transparent materials such as glass, and are already being used to fabricate medical stents, repair photomasks, drill ink-jet nozzles and pattern solar cells. The researchers also explain the characteristics of such lasers and the interaction of ultrashort, intense pulses of light with matter.

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Ultrafast lasers—reliable tools for advanced materials processing

High-repetition rate femtosecond lasers are shown to drive heat accumulation processes that are attractive for rapid writing of low-loss optical waveguides in transparent glasses. A novel femtosecond fiber laser system (IMRA America, FCPA muJewel) providing variable repetition rate between 0.1 and 5 MHz was used to study the relationship between heat accumulation and resulting waveguide properties in fused silica and various borosilicate glasses. Increasing repetition rate was seen to increase the waveguide diameter and decrease the waveguide loss, with waveguides written with 1-MHz repetition rate yielding ~0.2-dB/cm propagation loss in Schott AF45 glass. A finite-difference thermal diffusion model accurately tracks the waveguide diameter as cumulative heating expands the modification zone above 200-kHz repetition rate.

Heat accumulation effects in femtosecond laser-written waveguides with variable repetition rate.

Nonlinear Optical Crystals: A Complete Survey

The first demonstration of diode-pumped laser action using a 980 nm diode, and wavelength-tunability in Yb3+:YCOB is reported.

980 nm diode pumped laser operation and wavelength tunability performance in Yb3+:YCOB

Femtosecond laser micro-machining of glasses and polymers in air

Thulium and holmium have become the rare earth dopants of choice for generating 2 micron laser light in silica fiber. The majority of Tm:fiber lasers are pumped with high power diodes at 790nm and rely upon cross-relaxation processes to achieve optical-to-optical efficiencies of 55-65%. Tm:fiber lasers can also be pumped at 90%. Ho:fiber lasers are similarly pumped by Tm:fiber lasers at 1900-1950nm, with <70% typical efficiency. In this work, Tm:fiber and Ho:fiber lasers are in-band pumped using the same experimental setup to directly compare their performance as 2 micron sources.

Comparison of in-band pumped Tm:fiber and Ho:fiber

Eye-safe, high power, tunable, narrow linewidth lasers are key technologies for a number of applications, including
atmospheric propagation measurements. Since the atmosphere has narrow line transmission windows it is important to
have a tunable linewidth source which can be matched to the transmission window. We have developed a stable narrow-linewidth
(0.3 nm), tunable (from 1947 nm to 2108 nm) large mode area thulium doped fiber laser. Using this as a seed
source, a master oscillator power amplifier with ~100 W output power will be presented.

Widely tunable (>100 nm) continuous-wave narrow-linewidth high-power thulium fiber laser

Wavefront distortions induced in various silica samples by a 2 μm thulium fiber laser were measured. Absorption of silica at 2 μm makes a full characterization of thermal lensing critical for high power applications.

Lawrence Shah

Papers

980 nm diode pumped laser operation and wavelength tunability performance in Yb3+:YCOB

Femtosecond laser micro-machining of glasses and polymers in air

Comparison of in-band pumped Tm:fiber and Ho:fiber

Widely tunable (>100 nm) continuous-wave narrow-linewidth high-power thulium fiber laser

Measurement of wavefront distortions resulting from incidence of high-power 2 μm laser light