Femtosecond laser-induced damage in dielectrics

We present a new method to investigate the ablation phenomenon by a 100 fs, 1053 nm Gaussian laser pulse in fused silica and describe the different mechanisms of ablation in long pulse and ultrashort pulse lasers. A modified rate equation is used to numerically calculate damage in dielectrics. In addition, we examine the respective role of ionization and avalanche ionization in femtosecond laser-induced damage. We find that present results are in quantitative agreement with those of earlier study.