METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PERFORMING LASER CURVED FILAMENTATION WITHIN TRANSPARENT MATERIALS

摘要

Systems and methods are described for forming continuous curved laser filaments in transparent materials. The filaments are preferably curved and C-shaped. Filaments may employ other curved profiles (shapes). A burst of ultrafast laser pulses is focused such that a beam waist is formed external to the material being processed without forming an external plasma channel, while a sufficient energy density is formed within an extended region within the material to support the formation of a continuous filament, without causing optical breakdown within the material. Filaments formed according to this method may exhibit lengths in the range of 100 μm-10 mm. An aberrated optical focusing element is employed to produce an external beam waist while producing distributed focusing of the incident beam within the material. Optical monitoring of the filaments may be employed to provide feedback to facilitate active control of the process.

主权项

1. A method of laser processing a transparent material, comprising the steps of:
providing a laser beam, said laser beam includes a burst of laser pulses or a single laser pulse; providing a cubic phase plate or mask in said laser beam path to induce cubic phase in said laser pulses forming Airy beam; externally focusing said laser Airy beam relative to said transparent material to form a beam waist at a location that is external to said transparent material; and, said laser pulses are focused such that a sufficient energy density is maintained within said transparent material to form a continuous laser C-shaped curved filament therein without causing optical breakdown.