Coulomb explosion-induced formation of highly oriented nanoparticles on thin films of 3C–SiC by the femtosecond pulsed laser

Abstract

We report the formation of highly oriented, uniform, and spherical nanoparticles of 3C–SiC as a result of Coulomb explosion during the interaction of near-infrared ultrafast laser pulses with 3C–SiC thin films grown on Si substrate. Experiments were performed at laser fluences well below the single shot, thermal modification threshold.

Reduction of Friction of Metals Using Laser-Induced Periodic Surface Nanostructures

“…The ripple structure studied in this paper is thus known as low spatial frequency laser-induced periodic surface structure (LSFL) [37]. As mentioned above, the formation mechanism of LIPSS is still in debate and some issues need to be further investigated [30][31][32][33][34][35]37]. Figure 3 shows the surface topography and the cross-sectional surface line profile of the ripple structures on the AISI 304L steel surfaces.…”

“…In general, LIPSS with periods close to the laser wavelength are called low spatial frequency LIPSS (LSFL), while LIPSS with periods much smaller than the laser wavelength are referred to as high spatial frequency LIPSS (HSFL) [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the formation mechanisms of LIPSS, such as interference mechanisms [31], excitation of surface plasmon polaritons [32], self-organization [33], second harmonic generation [34], and Coulomb explosion [35]. However, some issues still need to be clarified.…”

Nanograting formation through surface plasmon fields induced by femtosecond laser pulses

“…In the fs-laser ablation experiment, spontaneous selforganization process has often been observed to produce nanoscale periodic structures on the surface of targets such as dielectrics, [1][2][3][4] semiconductors, [5][6][7] and metals. [8][9][10] The observed nanostructure size is typically 1/10-1/5 of the laser wavelength k. This phenomenon has attracted considerable interest since the first observations a decade ago [1][2][3] because the selforganized surface nanostructure suggests a potential route to transcend the diffraction limit in the laser-matter interactions.…”

“…[13][14][15] The ripple formation mechanisms, however, never account for the origin of fs-laser-induced nanostructures much smaller than k. Then a number of proposals have been made so far to explain the fundamental mechanism of nanostructuring. Those are concerned with self-organization of surface instability, 1,16 linear and/or nonlinear refractive index change, 3,7 Coulomb explosion, 4 second-harmonic generation, 5,17 nanoplasma formation, 18,19 optical near-fields, 20,21 and excitation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in the surface layer. 22,23 Some of these mechanisms should contribute to the observed periodic nanostructure formation in specific cases.…”

Periodic and uniform nanogratings formed on cemented carbide by femtosecond laser scanning

“…1 So far, several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the formation of nanogratings induced by femtosecond laser pulses, such as interference between the incident laser light and the surface scattered wave [17], self-organization [6], second harmonic generation (SHG) [8], excitation of surface plasmon polaritons [18], and Coulomb explosion [19] etc. However, it is suggested from our research that the surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) excited by femtosecond laser irradiation can explain the formation of nanogratings in this paper [20,21].…”