Acoustic wave monitoring in pulsed laser interaction with materials

Abstract

Pulsed excimer lasers have been proven very useful in material processing, such as laser ablation of materials and the cleaning of material surfaces. It is desirable to introduce a suitable real-time monitoring probe to control the laser processing. In this work, audible acoustic waves generated during laser interaction with materials is studied, thus monitoring the interaction and reflecting the nature of interaction such as laser ablation and surface cleaning. The spectral analysis method, fast Fourier transform (FFT) allowed to study the acoustic wave generation and to establish relationship between the acoustic waves and laser ablation rate or cleaning efficiency.