Abstract

Few-cycle femtosecond pulses (~10 fs) have proven their interest in highly-controlled interaction with dielectric materials [1]. For efficient single-shot ablation, intensities exceeding 10¹⁴ W/cm² at the target surface are required. However, for such intensities, working in air ambience rapidly yields significant nonlinear spatial distortion of the beam in the pre-focal region, or even air ionization, which inevitably hampers the applicability of such ultrashort pulse. Here we study and discuss these limitations associated to working in air ambieance, and we also demonstrate that even in a high-intensity regime (i.e. with a strongly self-reshaped beam), prediction and realization of high-quality ablation craters are still attainable in air.

© 2017 IEEE