Physicochemical Mechanisms of Nanostructuring of Glass by Femtosecond Laser Pulses with the Use of Selective Etching

Abstract

Processes occurring at nanostructuring of glass irradiated by tightly focused single femtosecond laser pulses with selective chemical etching in the alkaline solution have been studied. Structures with a width up to 50 nm have been created. The dependence of the morphology and sizes of the created structures on the parameters of laser radiation and etching time has been revealed. Measurements of fluorescence of glass at the variation of the polarization and energy of a laser pulse in wide ranges have revealed the character of nonlinear absorption processes in a sample. The results have clarified the physicochemical processes in glass leading to selective chemical etching and demonstrate advantages of this method over the method of simple laser processing of glass for the creation of complex structures with subdiffraction resolution.