Dynamics of femtosecond laser induced ablation from solid surfaces

Advantages of ultrashort laser pulses in material processing applications have been demonstrated in a number of cases, but the fundamental processes leading to structural modifications of laser-irradiated surfaces are not well understood as yet. In this work we have investigated the dynamics of ablation from different absorbing and non-absorbing solid materials after excitation with 100 fs laser pulses. Using ultrafast time-resolved microscopy [1] the reflectivity of the excited surface is measured with both femtosecond time and micrometer spatial resolution.