Time-resolved shadowgraphic study of femtosecond laser ablation of aluminum under different ambient air pressures

Femtosecond pulse laser ablation of aluminum under different ambient air pressures between 1 atm and 4 x 10{sup -4} Pa is investigated using a femtosecond time-resolved shadowgraphic method. It is observed that as the ambient air pressure decreases, the contact front becomes more and more distinct for a certain pressure range, demonstrating that the confinement effect of the ambient air to the ablated target material can play a critically important role in the laser ablation process. It is also found that the concentric and semicircular stripe pattern, which results from the diffraction of the probe beam by the expanding plume of a specific material state and is typically observed in the shadowgraphs for 1-2 ns delay time, gradually blurs and disappears while the ambient air pressure decreases from 1 atm to 7000 Pa. If a prepulse or a relatively large pulse pedestal exists before the main pulse, however, the stripe pattern can still be observed even though the ambient air pressure is 5 x 10{sup -4} Pa. It is thus inferred that what contributes to the formation of the unique stripe pattern is a mixture of the ejected target material and ionized background gas induced by the femtosecond laser ablation.