From Femtosecond Laser-Induced Plasma Formation Inside Glass to Stress Wave Generation and Propagation: Experiments and Modelling

Femtosecond lasers are an important industrial tool for material processing, offering many advantages such as micrometric resolution, material independent processing and minimization of side effects thus resulting in excellent machining quality. However, the surrounding volume of laser-matter interaction may exhibit different material mechanical properties due to stress wave formation. Depending on the application, this modification can be beneficial (stealth dicing) or detrimental (lowered mechanical resistance). Time-resolved stress characterization following laser interaction would optimize the input laser machining parameters to obtain the desired final result.