Hybrid laser-plasma micro-structuring of fused silica based on surface reduction by a low-temperature atmospheric pressure plasma

In this contribution, we report on a novel hybrid laser-plasma method for material processing applications. This method is based on the combination of both an ArF excimer laser (lambda = 193 nm) and a low-temperature atmospheric pressure plasma jet source for the chemical reduction of glass surfaces. Here, a hydrogen-containing plasma gas was applied. Due to the layer of silicon suboxide that is generated in this vein, the absorption of the incoming machining laser beam is significantly increased after 15 minutes of plasma-treatment. Several machining experiments in terms of front-side ablation were performed on fused silica. Here, both pure and plasma-treated surfaces were ab-lated using single laser pulses with a pulse duration of 20 ns. By introducing the presented hybrid technique, the ablation threshold for micro-structuring was reduced significantly by a factor of 4.6 whereas the peak-to-valley height Rz of the machined area was decreased by a factor of 2.3. Further, back-side ablation using the presented method was considered. By a terminal tempering process, the initial transmission characteristics of fused silica can be reconstituted.