APPLICATIONS OF SHORT AND ULTRASHORT LASER INTERACTION WITH MATTER: FOR ABLATION AND NANOLITHOGRAPHY

The laser is being applied to various industrial applications as well as many research areas since the first laser built in the 1960s until it became a promising candidate for the technology development in the modern life. Hence, laser-material interaction continued to draw global attention. Understanding the mechanism of laser-material interaction at the femto- and nanosecond scales is crucial for basic research as well as energy, industrial, and defense applications. This thesis provides a study of the physics involved in laser-target interaction processes. This study starts with laser energy couples to target materials, then followed by studying of the ejected target particles, and the evolution of the evolving plasma. Although there are thorough works both theoretical and experimental which have been conducted over the years, there are still open questions to be answered. This includes the coupling of laser energy to the target material mainly in the high laser energy regions, the role of laser pulse duration on the dependence of the energytarget coupling, the charged particles ejection mechanisms, and how the pulse duration and target material properties affect target evolution. Understanding of the physics and mechanisms of laser energy coupling to the target material was then used for developing and optimizing multi-disciplinary applications. In this thesis, the ultrafast laser was investigated as a promising candidate for nanoparticles generation and thin film fabrication. Furthermore, laser energy was used to study the erosion of metals under different ambient conditions of gas and pressure, these conditions provide a simultaneous thermal, charged particles, and photons irradiation. These conditions are similar to the conditions at which material is exposed to in real applications such as energy applications using fusion reactors. Coupling both ultrafast and fast laser pulses was used for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light generation for advanced nanolithography for the next-generation computer chips. This laser-produced plasma could provide a solution to one of a problem existing in the current lithography industry which is ion debris and EUV photon collection system lifetime degradation.