Polarization-dependent femtosecond laser ablation of poly-methyl methacrylate

We show that ablation features in poly-methyl methacrylate (PMMA) induced by a single femtosecond laser pulse are imposed by light polarization. The ablation craters are elongated along the major axis of the polarization vector and become increasingly prominent as the pulse energy is increased above the threshold energy. We demonstrate ~40% elongation for linearly and elliptically polarized light in the fluence range of 4–20 J cm−2, while circularly polarized light produced near circular ablation craters irrespective of pulse energies. We also show that irradiation with multiple pulses erases the polarization-dependent elongation of the ablation craters. However, for line ablation the orientation of the electric field vector is imprinted in the form of quasi-periodic structures inside the ablated region. Theoretically, we show that the polarization dependence of the ablation features arises from a local field enhancement during light–plasma interaction. Simulations also show that in materials with high nonlinearities such as doped PMMA, in addition to conventional explosive boiling, sub-surface multiple filamentation can also give rise to porosity.