Jmar Research, Inc.

Jamar Technologies Co.

Michael Powers

Harry Rieger

James H Morris

Henry Shields

A method and apparatus for laser cutting a target material is disclosed. The method includes the steps of generating laser pulses from a laser system and applying the laser pulses to the target material so that the laser pulses cut through the material. The laser pulses have an approximately ellipse shaped spot, have a temporal pulse width shorter than about 100 nanoseconds, and have an energy density from about 2 to about 20 times the ablation threshold energy of the target material. The laser pulses are applied to the material such that the major axis of the ellipse shaped spot moves parallel to the cutting direction. The spot has a leading edge and a trailing edge on the major axis, and the energy density of each laser pulse increases from zero to a maximum along the leading edge and decreases back to zero along the trailing edge. The apparatus is a laser system for cutting a target material that includes: a seed laser system for producing a first pulse laser beam; a laser amplifier for amplifying the first pulse laser beam to produce an amplified pulse laser beam; a harmonic generation system for converting the amplified pulse laser beam into a second pulse laser beam having a shorter wavelength; a focussing system for focussing the second pulse laser beam to an approximately ellipse shaped third pulse laser beam; and a motion control system for moving a target material contacted by the third pulse laser beam.

Method and apparatus for laser ablation of a target material

An improved high average power, high brightness laser system. The laser system comprises an XeCI excimer amplifier, an XeCI excimer preamplifier, a means for generating a picosecond seed pulse tailored for the XeCI preamplifier and the XeCI amplifier and a means for focusing the output pulse laser beam onto a spot smaller in area than 100.times.10.sup.-6 cm.sup.2. We first produce a seed laser beam consisting of a series of bunches of short duration pulses with a bunch frequency in excess of 100 pulses per second. These seed laser pulses are produced by a Nd:YAG pumped dye laser oscillator with a cavity dumper. The pulses in the beam are preamplified in a multipass preamplifier and the pulses are then multiplexed in a pulse train generator into a larger number of lower power pulses. A multi-pass laser amplifier then amplifies each pulse in the bunched pulse laser beam to produce an amplified pulse laser beam which is then tightly focused to so that the individual pulses are at brightness levels in excess of 10.sup.11 Watts/cm.sup.2. A prototype device built and tested by Applicants and their fellow workers has produced a pulsed laser beam with 50 ps, 30.times.10.sup.-3 Joule pulses at 1,120 pulses per second to provide a beam with average power of 34 Watts. Focusing the beam at a 10 micron diameter spot produces intensity levels of 7.times.10.sup.14 per cm.sup.2. Using an iron target Applicants have produced X-ray sources of average X-ray power levels in excess of 3.5 Watts. This source is capable of printing integrated circuits with dimensions in the range of 0.1 micron to 0.25 micron at rates of about 10 wafers per hour.

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San Diego, CA, United States of America

Michael Powers