Designer Pulses for precise machining of silicon - A step towards photonic compositions

The past decade has seen the introduction of high performance short-pulse systems such as fiber and disk lasers with repetition rates in the several hundred-kHz range. These have provided the user with a wide range of interaction parameters to chose from. The availability of high speed optical imaging techniques has also provided the opportunity to explore high-speed laser matter interactions in greater detail. In this paper we demonstrate a single pulse study of a decaying tail in the pulse envelope using "unfilled" and "energy filled" pulses. We demonstrate a Pulsed digital holography (PDH) system used to study the shock wave dynamics, laser induced plasma and energy deposition efficiencies of single and multipulse interactions of 200 ns shaped laser pulses, with a temporal resolution of < 10 ns. Finally, we demonstrate novel designer pulses that show improved material response and increased penetration depth at a fraction of the energetic cost of conventional pulses