Femtosecond-laser Nanostructuring in Glass

Tailored surface birefringence by femtosecond laser assisted wet etching.

Surface texturing is demonstrated by the combination of wet etching and ultrafast laser nanostructuring of silica glass. Using potassium hydroxide (KOH) at room temperature as an etchant of laser modified glass, we show the polarization dependent linear increase in retardance reaching a threefold value within 25 hours. The dispersion control of birefringence by the etching procedure led to achr...

Functional Birefringent Elements Imprinted by Femtosecond Laser Nanostructuring of Multi-Component Glass

A decade ago, a new type of self-organization process was observed in the bulk of SiO2 glass after irradiation with ultrashort laser pulses [1]. Under certain irradiation conditions, highly ordered nanostructures with features smaller than 20 nm could be formed in the irradiated volume. The sub-wavelength arrangement of these structures results in form birefringence, which was recently exploite...

Three-dimensional Nanostructuring of Transparent Materials by the Femtosecond Laser Irradiation

The mechanism of nanobump formation in femtosecond pulse laser nanostructuring of thin metal films

The physical mechanisms responsible for the formation of nanobump structures on a surface of a thin metal film irradiated by a tightly focused femtosecond laser pulse are investigated in a large-scale molecular dynamics simulation. The simulation is performed with a combined atomistic-continuum model adapted for an adequate representation of laser-induced processes at the length-scale of the en...

Compact 3D Microfluidic Channel Structures Embedded in Glass Fabricated by Femtosecond Laser Direct Writing

We demonstrate rapid fabrication of complex three-dimensional (3D) microfluidic channels with lengths up to ~6.0 cm within a tiny volume down to ~80 nl in glass substrates by femtosecond laser direct writing, which, to the best of our knowledge, is the longest microfluidic channel directly embedded in glass by femtosecond laser microprocessing. The fabrication mainly includes the following two ...