Temporally focused femtosecond laser pulses for low numerical aperture micromachining through optically transparent materials

Temporal focusing of spatially chirped femtosecond laser pulses overcomes previous limitations for ablating high aspect ratio features with low numerical aperture (NA) beams. Simultaneous spatial and temporal focusing reduces nonlinear interactions, such as self-focusing, prior to the focal plane so that deep (approximately 1 mm) features with parallel sidewalls are ablated at high material removal rates (25 microm(3) per 80 microJ pulse) at 0.04-0.05 NA. This technique is applied to the fabrication of microfluidic devices by ablation through the back surface of thick (6 mm) fused silica substrates. It is also used to ablate bone under aqueous immersion to produce craniotomies.