Laser-induced back-side etching with liquid and the solid hydrocarbon absorber films of different thicknesses

Abstract

Laser-induced backside wet and dry etching (LIBWE and LIBDE) are methods for high-quality surface patterning of transparent dielectrics that making use of an additional absorber material attached to the rear side that is ablated in a confined configuration. Due to the manifold of the involved processes, the mechanism of the etching process and the parameter influence on the material removal process are multifaceted and not fully understood yet. In the present paper, we investigate the influence of the confinement to the backside etching process by studying the impact of the thickness of the attached liquid or solid absorber within a range of 12–125 and 0.2–11.7 μm, respectively. It was found that for the liquid and solid absorbers, the etching rate increases with the thickness of the absorber layer and saturates exceeding a certain value, which depends on the used laser fluence. Moreover, the incubation of etching depends on the absorber thickness. The comparison of the etching results of a similar thickness of the liquid and the solid absorber layers shows that the phase of the absorber (liquid or solid) does not influence the back-side etching process. Time-resolved shadowgraph images of the process indicate that with higher absorber layer thickness, the interaction time and strength of the laser-induced processes at the sample surface increase. The results suggest that confinement of the rear side attached absorber ablation influences the impact of the laser-induced secondary processes to the strength of the material modifications and, therefore, the etching rate.