In-situ real-time monitoring of ultrafast laser processing using wide-field high-resolution snapshot compressive microscopy

Abstract

Over the last few decades, ultrafast laser processing has become a widely used tool for manufacturing microstructures and nanostructures. The real-time monitoring of laser material processing provides opportunities to inspect processes and provide feedback. To date, in-situ and real-time monitoring of laser material processing has rarely been performed. To this end, we propose dual-path snapshot compressive microscopy (DP-SCM) for high-speed, large field-of-view, and high-resolution imaging for in-situ and real-time ultrafast laser processing. In the evaluation of DP-SCM, the field of view, lateral resolution, and imaging speed were measured to be 2 mm, 775 nm, and 500 fps, respectively. In ultrafast laser processing, the laser scanning process is observed using a DP-SCM system when translating the sample stage and scanning the focused femtosecond laser. Finally, we monitored the development of a self-organized nanograting structure to validate the potential of our system for unveiling new material mechanisms. The proposed method serves as an add-up (plug-and-play) module for any imaging setup and has vast potential for opening new avenues for high-throughput imaging in laser material processing.