Laser ablation of silicon using a Bessel-like beam generated by a subwavelength annular aperture structure

Using a femtosecond laser incident to an oxide-metal-oxide film engraved with a subwavelength annular aperture (SAA) structure, we generated a Bessel-like beam to ablate silicon. Experimental results show that the silicon can be ablated with a 0.05 J=cm² input ablation threshold at 120 fs pulse duration. We obtained a surface hole possessing a diameter less than 1μm. Optical performance, including depth-of-focus and focal spot of the SAA structure, were simulated using finite-different time-domain calculations. We found that a far-field laser beam propagating through a SAA structure possesses a submicrometer focal spot and high focus intensity. Our method can be easily adopted for surface machining in microfabrication applications.