The influences of surface plasmons and thermal effects on femtosecond laser-induced subwavelength periodic ripples on Au film by pump-probe imaging

In this paper, the influences of surface plasmons and thermal effects on the formation of subwavelength periodic ripples on Au films irradiated by 800 nm femtosecond laser pulses were studied by collinear pump-probe imaging. The spatial and temporal resolutions of the experiment were 300 nm and 1 ps, respectively. No periodic ripples were observed on the Au film during ablation by the first pump pulse, but during ablation by the second pump pulse the appearance of transient ripples was evident from a delay time of hundreds of picoseconds to several nanoseconds. These ripples, however, were not retained after solidification. When the sample was immersed in water during ablation, however, the ripples were retained. It is proposed that, during the second laser pulse irradiation, the surface defects produced by the first pulse induced surface plasmon polaritons on the Au film, which caused a modulated energy deposition and the formation of transient ripples. The weak electron-phonon coupling and significant residual heat erase these ripples after the molten surface was solidified.