Sequences of picosecond pulses with a total energy in the pulse train of about 1 mJ are transmitted through a hollow-core photonic-crystal fibre with a core diameter of approximately 14 μm. The fluence of laser radiation coupled into the core of the fibre under these conditions exceeds the breakdown threshold of fused silica by nearly an order of magnitude. The laser beam coming out of the fibre is then focused to produce a breakdown on a solid surface. Parameters of laser radiation were chosen in such a way as to avoid effects related to the excitation of higher order waveguide modes and ionization of the gas filling the fibre in order to provide the possibility to focus the output beam into a spot with a minimum diameter, thus ensuring the maximum spatial resolution and the maximum power density in the focal spot.
Sequences of picosecond pulses of 1.06-microm Nd:YAG laser radiation with a total energy of approximately 2 mJ are transmitted through a hollow-core photonic-crystal fiber with a core diameter of approximately 14 microm and are focused onto a tooth's surface in vitro to ablate dental tissue. The hollow-core photonic-crystal fiber is shown to support the single-fundamental-mode regime for 1.06-microm laser radiation, serving as a spatial filter and allowing the laser beam's quality to be substantially improved. The same fiber is used to transmit emission from plasmas produced by laser pulses onto the tooth's surface in the backward direction for detection and optical diagnostics.
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