title: Optical coherence tomography for process control of laser micromachining.
abstract: In situ surface imaging for nondestructive evaluation (NDE) by optical coherence tomography (OCT) before, during, and after ablative laser processing is presented. Furthermore, it is shown that the ability of in situ characterization is beneficial for samples such as optical fibers, which are difficult to handle in the standard analysis. Surface images taken by the OCT are compared with these common analysis tools such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), reflected-light, and confocal microscopy. An axial resolution of approximately 126 nm for surface detection and a lateral resolution <2.5 microm are obtained and the potential of the setup to imaging structures with high aspect ratio is demonstrated.
authors.affiliation: Laser-Laboratorium Göttingen e.V., Hans-Adolf-Krebs-Weg 1, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wiesner
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ihlemann
authors.forename: Heike H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lankenau
authors.forename: Gereon
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hüttmann
mesh_terms: D007834:Lasers; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal / Q000379:methods; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning / Q000379:methods; D055616:Microtechnology / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D055100:Optical Fibers; D013997:Time Factors; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*