Two-photon-induced internal modification of silicon by erbium-doped fiber laser

Three-dimensional bulk modification of dielectric materials by multiphoton absorption of laser pulses is a well-established technology. The use of multiphoton absorption to machine bulk silicon has been investigated by a number of authors using femtosecond laser sources. However, no modifications confined in bulk silicon, induced by multiphoton absorption, have been reported so far. Based on results from numerical simulations, we employed an erbium-doped fiber laser operating at a relatively long pulse duration of 3.5 nanoseconds and a wavelength of 1549 nm for this process. We found that these laser parameters are suitable to produce modifications at various depths inside crystalline silicon.