Ablation effects and mechanism of sintered silicon carbide ceramics by an ArF excimer laser

The ablation of sintered silicon carbide ceramics by an ArF excimer laser was studied. Three zones are generated: the ablation zone that presented molten morphology and was composed by the Si and C phase; the condensation zone formed by vaporized SiC; and the oxidation zone that showed the characteristics of thermal oxidation. The ablation depth and oxidation range increase linearly with fluence and pulses within 0.5–4 J/cm2, but the normalized ablation efficiency is constant (3.60 ± 0.60 μm·mm2/J). The theoretical photochemical ablation depth supplies 25% of the total depth at 1 J/cm2 but decreases to 16% at 4 J/cm2. The ablation is dominated by the photothermal effect and conforms to the thermal evaporation mechanism.