Surface treatment of stainless steel and other metals is presented using subpicosecond laser pulses at 248 nm. Applying diffractive optical masks combined with a reflective imaging system sub-micron size features are generated on the sample surface. During the experiments different types of diffractive elements are used. The imaging properties of an amplitude mask consisting of crossed lines and a 2 level diffractive phase element (DPE) are compared to obtain micro hole arrays. Ablated structures with diameters between 300 nm and 1,5 μm are presented. The ultrashort pulse UV laser system applied for surface texturing comprises a Ti:Sapphire front end system and a specially developed excimer amplifier module generating 300 fs pulses at 248 nm with an average power of close to 10 W. Using the above mentioned diffractive optical elements and the newly developed excimer module operating at 300 Hz allows high precision texturing of large surfaces opening up new possibilities in industrial applications.

Date Published: 19 February 2003
PDF: 4 pages
Proc. SPIE 4830, Third International Symposium on Laser Precision Microfabrication, (19 February 2003); doi: 10.1117/12.486518

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4830:
Third International Symposium on Laser Precision Microfabrication
Isamu Miyamoto; Kojiro F. Kobayashi; Koji Sugioka; Reinhart Poprawe; Henry Helvajian, Editor(s)