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Single-pulse ablation of multi-depth structures via spatially filtered binary intensity masks

Single-pulse ablation of multi-depth structures via spatially filtered binary intensity masks
Single-pulse ablation of multi-depth structures via spatially filtered binary intensity masks

Digital micromirror devices (DMDs) show great promise for use as intensity spatial light modulators. When used in conjunction with pulsed lasers of a timescale below the DMD pixel switching time, DMDs are generally only used as binary intensity masks (i.e., “on” or “off” intensity for each mask pixel). In this work, we show that by exploiting the numerical aperture of an optical system during the design of binary masks, near-continuous intensity control can be accessed, whilst still maintaining high-precision laser-machining resolution. Complex features with ablation depths up to ∼60 nm, corresponding to grayscale values in bitmap images, are produced in single pulses via ablation with 150 fs laser pulses on nickel substrates, with lateral resolutions of ∼2.5 μm.

1559-128X
1904-1999
Heath, Daniel J.
d53c269d-90d2-41e6-aa63-a03f8f014d21
Grant-Jacob, James A.
c5d144d8-3c43-4195-8e80-edd96bfda91b
Eason, Robert W.
e38684c3-d18c-41b9-a4aa-def67283b020
Mills, Ben
05f1886e-96ef-420f-b856-4115f4ab36d0
Heath, Daniel J.
d53c269d-90d2-41e6-aa63-a03f8f014d21
Grant-Jacob, James A.
c5d144d8-3c43-4195-8e80-edd96bfda91b
Eason, Robert W.
e38684c3-d18c-41b9-a4aa-def67283b020
Mills, Ben
05f1886e-96ef-420f-b856-4115f4ab36d0

Heath, Daniel J., Grant-Jacob, James A., Eason, Robert W. and Mills, Ben (2018) Single-pulse ablation of multi-depth structures via spatially filtered binary intensity masks. Applied Optics, 57 (8), 1904-1999. (doi:10.1364/AO.57.001904).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Digital micromirror devices (DMDs) show great promise for use as intensity spatial light modulators. When used in conjunction with pulsed lasers of a timescale below the DMD pixel switching time, DMDs are generally only used as binary intensity masks (i.e., “on” or “off” intensity for each mask pixel). In this work, we show that by exploiting the numerical aperture of an optical system during the design of binary masks, near-continuous intensity control can be accessed, whilst still maintaining high-precision laser-machining resolution. Complex features with ablation depths up to ∼60 nm, corresponding to grayscale values in bitmap images, are produced in single pulses via ablation with 150 fs laser pulses on nickel substrates, with lateral resolutions of ∼2.5 μm.

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 31 October 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 12 January 2018
Published date: 10 March 2018

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 418959
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/418959
ISSN: 1559-128X
PURE UUID: aff295ad-d7f7-4616-a0d7-2c3386574904
ORCID for James A. Grant-Jacob: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-4270-4247
ORCID for Robert W. Eason: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-9704-2204
ORCID for Ben Mills: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1784-1012

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Date deposited: 27 Mar 2018 16:30
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 03:16

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Contributors

Author: Daniel J. Heath
Author: James A. Grant-Jacob ORCID iD
Author: Robert W. Eason ORCID iD
Author: Ben Mills ORCID iD

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