Femtosecond laser ablation of sapphire on different crystallographic facet planes by single and multiple laser pulses irradiation

Ablation of sapphire on different crystallographic facet planes by single and multiple laser pulses irradiation was carried out with a femtosecond pulsed laser operating at a wavelength of 780 nm and a pulse width of 164 fs. The quality and morphology of the laser ablated sapphire surface were evaluated by scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. For single laser pulse irradiation, two ablation phases were observed, which have a strong dependency on the pulse energy. The volume of the ablated craters kept an approximately linear relationship with the pulse energy. The threshold fluences of the two ablation phases on different crystallographic facet planes were calculated from the relationship between the squared diameter of the craters and pulse energy. With multiple laser pulses irradiation, craters free of cracks were obtained in the ‘gentle’ ablation phase. The threshold fluence for N laser pulses was calculated and found to decrease inversely to the number of laser pulses irradiating on the substrate surface due to incubation effect. The depth of the craters increased with the number of laser pulses until reaching a saturation value. The mechanism of femtosecond laser ablation of sapphire in two ablation phases was discussed and identified as either phase explosion, Coulomb explosion or particle vaporization. The choice of crystallographic facet plane has little effect on the process of femtosecond laser ablation of sapphire when compared with the parameters of the femtosecond laser pulses, such as pulse energy and number of laser pulses. In the ‘gentle’ ablation phase, laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) with a spatial period of 340 nm were obtained and the mechanism of the LIPSS formation is discussed. There is a potential application of the femtosecond laser ablation to the fabrication of sapphire-based devices.