Absence of amorphous phase in high power femtosecond laser-ablated silicon

As femtosecond lasers emerge as viable tools for advanced microscale materials processing, it becomes increasingly important to understand the characteristics of materials resulting from femtosecond laser microablation or micromachining. We conducted transmission electron microscopy experiments to investigate crater structures in silicon produced by repetitive high power femtosecond laser ablation. Comparable experiments of nanosecond laser ablation of silicon were also performed. We found that an amorphous silicon layer that is typically produced in nanosecond laser ablation is absent when the material is irradiated by high power femtosecond laser pulses. Instead, only a defective single crystalline layer was observed in the high power femtosecond laser-ablated silicon crater. Possible mechanisms underlying the formation of the defective single crystalline phase are discussed.