MACHINING OF SUBMICRON HOLES USING A FEMTOSECOND LASER AT 800-NM

The ability to machine very small features in materials has a number of technological applications. We have ablated holes, by laser ablation, into a metal film. Using 200 fs, 800 nm pulses from a Ti:sapphire laser, focused to a spot size of 3000 nm, we have produced holes with a diameter of 300 nm and a depth of 52 nm. The production of these small features is possible because the effects of thermal diffusion are minimized with the short pulses.