m8ta
You are not authenticated, login. |
|
{1324} | ||
Problem: have a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser, (flashlamp pumped, passively Q-switched) from ebay (see this album). Allegedly it outputs 1J pulses of 8ns duration; in practice, it may put several 100mJ pulses ~ 16ns long while the flashlamp is firing. It was sold as a tattoo removal machine. However, I'm employing it to drill micro-vias in fine polyimide films. When focused through a 10x objective via the camera mount of an Leica microscope, 532nm (KTP doubled, second harmonic generation (SHG)) laser pulses both ablates the material, but does not leave a clean, sharp hole: it looks more like 'blasting': the hole is ragged, more like a crater. This may be from excessive 1064nm heating (partial KTP conversion), or plasma/flame heating & expansion due to absorption of the 532nm / 1064nm light. It may also be due to excessive pulse duration (should the laser not actually be q-switched... photodiode testing suggests otherwise, but I'd like to verify that), excessive pulse power, insufficient pulse intensity, or insufficient polyimide absorption at 532nm. The solution to excessive plasma and insufficient polyimide absorption is to shift the wavelength to 355nm (NUV) via third harmonic generation, 1064 + 532 = 355nm. This requires sum frequency generation (SFG), for which LBO (lithium triborate) or BBO (beta-barium borate) seem the commonly accepted nonlinear optical materials. To get SHG or THG, phase and polarization matching of the incoming light is critical. The output of the Nd:YAG laser is, I assume, non-polarized (or randomly polarized), as the KTP crystal simply screws on the front, and so should be rotationally agnostic (and there are no polarizing elements in the simple laser head -- unless the (presumed) Cr:YAG passive Q-switch induces some polarization.) Output polarization of the KTP crystal will be perpendicular to the incoming beam; if the resulting THG / SFG crystal needs Type-1 phase matching (both in phase and parallel polarization), will need a half-wave plate for 1064nm; for Type-II phase matching, no plate is needed. For noncritical phase matching in LBO (which I just bought), an oven is required to heat the crystal to the correct temperature. This suggests 73C for THG, while this suggests 150C (for SHG?). Third harmonic frequency generation by type-I critically phase-matched LiB3O5 crystal by means of optically active quartz crystal Suggests most lasers operate in Type-1 SHG, and Type-II THG, but this is less efficient than dual Type-1; the quartz crystal is employed to rotate the polarizations to alignment. Both SHG and THG crystals are heated for optimum power output. Finally, Short pulse duration of an extracavity sum-frequency mixing with an LiB3O5 (LBO) crystal suggests that no polarization change is required, nor oven control LBO temperature. Tight focus and high energy density is required, of course (at the expense of reduced crystal lifetime). Likely this is the Type-1,Type-II scheme alluded to in the paper above. I'll try this first before engaging further complexity (efficiency is not very important, as the holes are very small & material removal may be slow.) |