Fabrication of microchannels in lithium tantalate by selective etching of structures inscribed with a femtosecond laser

Selective etching of material areas modified by femtosecond laser pulses in the volume of lithium tantalate has been applied to produce hollow microchannels. In a fully monolithic approach, microchannels up to 2.5 mm long with cross sections of 2.5 µ m × 20 µ m were etched into the crystal volume at...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kore Hasse, Daniel Nwatu, Stella Müller, Sergiy Suntsov, Detlef Kip
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2025-01-01
Series:JPhys Photonics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7647/ade1bb
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Selective etching of material areas modified by femtosecond laser pulses in the volume of lithium tantalate has been applied to produce hollow microchannels. In a fully monolithic approach, microchannels up to 2.5 mm long with cross sections of 2.5 µ m × 20 µ m were etched into the crystal volume at a depth of 430 µ m. The influence of the laser repetition rate, the pulse energy and the writing speed on the etching time and the etching selectivity was investigated as part of a systematic study. Characteristic process parameters, i.e. selectivity and diffusion coefficient were determined by fitting the etch depth versus time using a superdiffusion model. The obtained parameters are suitable for predicting the results of selective etching for certain process parameters, and thus enable the process to be controlled. A similar study was carried out in sapphire for comparison purposes.
ISSN:2515-7647