The demand in the field of microtechnology to create multi-level structures with sufficient resolution has been growing in recent years, particularly in micro-optics. Using the well-known laser ablation technique, the behaviour of different hybrid organic/inorganic homemade sol-gel materials and of a standard commercial photoresist are investigated with a KrF laser emitting at 248 run with nanosecond pulses. The aim consists of rapidly transferring relief patterns at low cost. The experimental set-up and procedure combined with the versatile profilometry technique of coherence probe microscopy (CPM) for rapid analysis are presented; the fabrication issues are discussed and compared with ablation of quartz and polymers. The materials calibration curves, which demonstrate the achievement of the present work, are presented. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.