TY - JOUR A1 - Lenzner, Matthias A1 - Krüger, Jörg A1 - Sartania, S. A1 - Cheng, Z. A1 - Spielmann, Ch. A1 - Mourou, G. A1 - Kautek, Wolfgang A1 - Krausz, F. T1 - Femtosecond Optical Breakdown in Dielectrics JF - Physical review letters N2 - We report measurements of the optical breakdown threshold and ablation depth in dielectrics with different band gaps for laser pulse durations ranging from 5 ps to 5 fs at a carrier wavelength of 780 nm. For tau <100 fs, the dominant channel for free electron generation is found to be either impact or multiphoton ionization (MPI) depending on the size of the band gap. The observed MPI rates are substantially lower than those predicted by the Keldysh theory. We demonstrate that sub-10-fs laser pulses open up the way to reversible nonperturbative nonlinear optics (at intensities greater than 1014 W/cm2 slightly below damage threshold) and to nanometer-precision laser ablation (slightly above threshold) in dielectric materials. PY - 1998 SN - 0031-9007 SN - 1079-7114 VL - 80 IS - 18 SP - 4076 EP - 4079 PB - American Physical Society CY - Ridge, NY AN - OPUS4-11518 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -