Brief communication: Ambient-pressure femtosecond laser ablation as a solid-phase sampling method for water ice

Abstract. High-resolution ice-core analysis requires sampling methods that preserve millimeter to sub-millimeter spatial information. We evaluate ambient-pressure femtosecond laser ablation (fs-LA) as a solid-phase and geometry-tolerant sampling method for water ice under cold, dry laboratory conditions. At 35 µJ and 50 kHz, visible localized craters were produced at all tested exposure times, with mean inner diameters of approximately 87–165 µm. Crater formation was repeatable at a 0.5 mm pitch along 400-position scan paths. The 1 s exposure produced the smallest sampling footprint and largest fraction of craters without visible rims, supporting fs-LA as a platform for future cryospheric analyses.