Improvement of Etching Anisotropy in Fused Silica by Double-Pulse Fabrication

Femtosecond laser-induced selective etching (FLISE) is a promising technology for fabrication of a wide range of optical, mechanical and microfluidic devices. Various etching conditions, together with significant process optimisations, have already been demonstrated. However, the FLISE technology still faces severe limitations for a wide range of applications due to limited processing speed and polarization-dependent etching. In this article, we report our novel results on the double-pulse processing approach on the improvement of chemical etching anisotropy and >30% faster processing speed in fused silica. The effects of pulse delay and pulse duration were investigated for further understanding of the relations between nanograting formation and etching. The internal sub-surface modifications were recorded with double cross-polarised pulses of a femtosecond laser, and a new nanograting morphology (grid-like) was demonstrated by precisely adjusting the processing parameters in a narrow processing window. It was suggested that this grid-like morphology impacts the etching anisotropy, which could be improved by varying the delay between two orthogonally polarized laser pulses.