Surface ablation of transparent polymers with femtosecond laser pulses

In this work, a study of the laser ablation on the surface of poly methyl-methacrylate (PMMA) is presented. Experiments were performed with a femtosecond laser delivering 450 fs pulses at a wavelength of 1027 nm. The laser beam energy was controlled through a polarizer based attenuator and measured by a calibrated photodiode energy meter. A focusing method called z-scan is used to place the sample on the beam waist. This method uses a second energy meter placed behind the sample, which was used to monitor the energy transmitted across the sample in situ. Thus, the absorption was evaluated by comparing the measurements of both energy meters. The z-scan method is evaluated by studying the laser ablation in three different positions between the sample and the laser beam waist. It is found that above a threshold energy that depends on the focusing conditions, the absorbance of the samples increases with the pulse energy. After irradiation, dimensional analysis of the craters produced at different pulse energies is performed in order to determine the best focusing conditions and the ablation threshold for ablation of PMMA samples.