Observation of Weakly Excited Ablation Dynamics with Femtosecond Laser by using Time-Resolved Soft X-ray Imaging Technique

Nishikino, Masaharu; Hasegawa, Noboru; Eyama, Tsuyoshi*; Kakimoto, Naoya*; Tomita, Takuro*; Hatomi, Daiki*; Onishi, Naofumi*; Ito, Atsushi*; Minami, Yasuo*; Baba, Motoyoshi*; Kawachi, Tetsuya; Yamagiwa, Mitsuru; Suemoto, Toru*

The dynamical process of laser-induced surface modification such as the laser ablation comes to attract much attention for the micro processing by the ultra-short laser pulse. In order to observe the surface morphological change during the fs laser ablation process with a weakly excitation, we have developed soft X-ray interferometer and reflectometer system. Weakly excited ablation processes of the gold (Au) films are investigated by using single shot pump and probe imaging technique, using a Ti:Sapphire laser pulse with the duration of 80 fs pulse at a central wavelength of 795 nm for the pumping of ablation and the laser-driven soft X-ray laser at the wavelength of 13.9 nm for the probe. We discuss the scenario of the weakly excited femtosecond laser ablation of the gold surface. The numerical simulation study of the fs laser ablation process is underway by using a parallel molecular dynamics code.