Nanoprocessing with nanojoule near-infrared femtosecond laser pulses

Abstract

Abstract Near-infrared (NIR) femtosecond laser pulses are novel tools for ultraprecise intracellular and intratissue surgery, cell isolation and nanostructering of biomaterials as well as for high-resolution multiphoton tomography. The required high transient laser intensity of TW/cm2 for multiphoton ablation can be achieved with low nanojoule energy laser pulses when using focusing optics of high numerical aperture. Most of the experiments have been performed with a compact turn-key femtosecond laser scanning system (FemtOcut, JenLab). The tight focusing results in a sub-femtoliter multiphoton interaction volume which enables nanoprocessing in the sub-200 nm range without any destructive photodisruptive collateral effects. FWHM cut sizes and nanostructures in silicon as low as 70 nm as well as knocking out of specific sub-70 nm genomic regions have been realized at 800 nm laser wavelength. Working with a precision of one order better than “Abbe's diffraction limit”, we demonstrate nano- and microdissection for applications in genomics and proteomics, sub-100 nm nanomachining for cell adhesion studies, destruction of intracelluar organelles and intratissue cells, targeted transfection as well as ocular refractive nanosurgery. NIR femtosecond lasers will become important tools in laser nanomedicine.