TY - JOUR A1 - Krüger, Jörg A1 - Kautek, Wolfgang T1 - Femtosecond pulse visible laser processing of fibre composite materials JF - Applied surface science N2 - A first investigation on the ablation of composite materials like carbon and silicon-carbide reinforced alumo- and borosilicate glasses by 300 fs laser pulses (620 nm) in comparison to experiments with 17 ns pulse excimer laser (308 nm) treatment is presented. In all composites, femtosecond laser scans with a fluence of less than 2 J cm-2 produce well defined cuts with smooth side walls in contrast to the nanosecond laser result where extremely incongruent ablation is observed. Visible lasers should not be applicable because SiC and the glasses are practically transparent. Visible subpicosecond pulses of high intensity in the TW cm-2 range allow multi-photon absorption accompanied by incubation phenomena. The morphology of the groove edges reveal the contrasting ablation thresholds and rates of the fibre and glass materials. The ablation thresholds of the transparent components, i.e. the glass matrices and SiC, are about one order of magnitude greater than that of carbon which is ~ 0.15 J cm-2. Incubation effects are important for the absorption mechanisms in the transparent materials. When a critical number of pulses has not been reached at the SiC-glass composites, only the glass is preferentially ablated, and the fibres remain intact. This is in contrast to the C-glass composites where the ablation behaviour is opposite. PY - 1996 SN - 0169-4332 SN - 1873-5584 VL - 106 SP - 383 EP - 389 PB - North-Holland CY - Amsterdam AN - OPUS4-11506 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -