SYMPOSIA PAPER Published: 01 January 1983
STP37232S

Laser Damage of Crystalline Silicon by Multiple 1.06μm, Picosecond Pulses

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Recent studies [1] have shown that the iso-intensity damage kinetics of crystalline silicon irradiated by picosecond 1.06μm pulses could be fit to the equations of classical nucleation and growth. These results suggested that laser damage be viewed as a non-equilibrium phase transition in which the threshold intensity produced excursions across a first order phase boundary into a metastable region of the material phase diagram.

In the present work we discuss a simplified electronic phase diagram for silicon that we believe is relevant to the picosecond damage experiments. The physics of the metastable region are as yet uncertain, but its presence requires that the statistics of laser damage be determined by the activated nucleation of embryos (charge density fluctuations) to near liquid phase charge densities.

The thermodynamic perspective suggests a new laser damage mechanism in which incident photons are resonantly absorbed by the collective electronic oscillations (surface plasmons) of critical embryos. Evidence supporting this mechanism has been obtained from high resolution SEM studies of the damage morphology showing that a coherent radiative interaction occurred between resonant surface plasmon embryos on adjacent sites just prior to liquid-like phase nucleation. Calculations show that the surface plasmon of a spherical embryo with a near liquid charge density of ∼2 × 1022/cm3 is resonantly coupled to the laser photons.

Author Information

Walser, RM
Becker, MF
Sheng, DY
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Developed by Committee: F01
Pages: 103–113
DOI: 10.1520/STP37232S
ISBN-EB: 978-0-8031-4865-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-8031-0708-3