Laser ablation acoustical monitoring

Short pulses laser generated shock waves in air during the ablation of ceramics have been monitored with acoustical techniques. We have found that on a given laser fluence domain the ablation rate can be related to the shock wave energy. This shock wave energy is measured both with the laser beam deflection technique and a microphone. We demonstrate that it is possible, after a calibration procedure, to simply use a microphone for a real time control of the ablation process.