Ultrafast Laser Micro- and Nano-Processing of Glasses

Abstract

Ultrafast lasers can perform high-quality, high-precision surface micromachining of glasses through multiphoton absorption. When an ultrafast laser beam with a moderate pulse energy is focused into glass, multiphoton absorption is confined to a region near the focal point inside the glass. Ultrafast lasers can thus perform internal modification of glass as well as surface processing. Internal modification is widely used to write 3D optical waveguides and to fabricate micro-optical components and microfluidic channels buried inside glass, enabling functional microdevices such as 3D photonic, microfluidic, and optofluidic devices to be fabricated. Glass bonding based on internal melting is another interesting application of ultrafast lasers. Tailoring the temporal profiles of ultrafast laser pulses can improve the quality and efficiency of ultrafast laser processing and enhance the fabrication resolution. This chapter comprehensively reviews several applications of surface and volume processing of glass, including surface micromachining and the fabrication of photonic, microfluidic, and optofluidic devices. It also discusses pulse-shaping techniques for achieving high-quality, high-efficiency, and high-resolution processing.