Pulse-duration dependence of laser-induced modifications inside silicon

The advent of ultrafast infrared lasers provides a unique opportunity for direct fabrication of three-dimensional silicon microdevices. However, strong nonlinearities prevent access to modification regimes in narrow gap materials with the shortest laser pulses. In contrary to surface experiments for which one can always define an energy threshold to initiate modifications, we establish that some other threshold conditions inevitably apply on the pulse duration and the numerical aperture for focusing. In an experiment where we can vary continuously the pulse duration from 4 to 21 ps, we show that a minimum duration of 5.4 ps and a focusing numerical aperture of 0.85 are required to successfully initiate modifications. Below and above thresholds, we investigate the pulse duration dependence of the conditions applied in matter. Despite a modest pulse duration dependence of the energy threshold in the tested range, we found that all pulse durations are not equally performing to achieve highly reproducible modifications. Taken together with previous reports in the femtosecond and nanosecond regimes, this provides important guidelines on the appropriate conditions for internal structuring of silicon.