Applied Surface Science, Vol.454, 327-333, 2018
Manipulation of multiple periodic surface structures on metals induced by femtosecond lasers
Under femtosecond laser pulse irradiation, the selective control of structural periods of low spatial frequency laser-induced periodic surface structures (LSFLs) is investigated on metals at large incident beam angles. As increasing the number of irradiating pulses, we produce three types of LSFLs, small-, dual-, and large-scale LSFLs, and find two kinds of structural period variations, the sequential structural variations from small- to dual- to large-scale LSFLs and the nonsequential variation directly from small- to large-scale LSFLs by controlling the laser fluence. Using the efficacy factor with the help of the Maxwell-Garnett theory, our study also shows that all three types of LSFLs can be understood by the interference between the incident beam and surface plasmon polaritons at the air-nanostructure composite and metal interface rather than the air-metal interface.
Keywords:Femtosecond phenomena;Laser-induced surface structure;Metal;Nanostructure fabrication;Light-matter interaction;Effective medium theory