Abstract
We review our experimental and theoretical work on the generation of coherent microstructures, on a variety of solid and liquid surfaces, by a single beam of coherent laser radiation. Incident light is scattered, initially from random surface roughness on a nominally smooth surface, and the interference of this scattered light with the incident beam leads to inhomogeneous energy deposition. At a solid surface this can lead to localized melting, and eventually to permanent structure as the material flows during resolidification; at a liquid surface capillary waves can be driven by the resulting vaporization etching. Although this effect is important in high-intensity material-processing applications, from a fundamental point of view it reveals much about both how coherent light interacts with and scatters from nominally smooth surfaces–since the structure is induced only at very specific wave vectors in Fourier space–and how material surfaces undergo phase changes such as vaporization, local melting, and regrowth, on time scales as short as 10 psec.
© 1984 Optical Society of America
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