Applications of ultra-short pulsed laser ablation: thin films deposition and fs/ns dual-pulse laser induced breakdown spectroscopy

In this paper, we report a survey of two of the large number of possible practical applications of the laser ablation performed by an ultra-short pulse laser, namely pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and fs/ns dual-pulse laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (DP-LIBS). These applications differ from those using just longer pulsed lasers as a consequence of the distinctive characteristics of the plasma produced by ultra-short laser beams. The most important feature of this plasma is the large presence of particles with nanometric size which plays a fundamental role in both applications.