Nanostructuring of solids with femtosecond laser pulses (Keynote Address)

Investigations of possibilities for nanostructuring with femtosecond laser pulses of different materials are reported. The aim is to develop a simple laser-based technology for the fabrication of two- and three-dimensional nanostructures with structure sizes on the order of several hundred nanometers. This is required for many applications in photonics, for the fabrication of photonic crystals and microoptical devices, for data storage, displays, etc. Sub-wavelength structuring of metals by direct femtosecond laser ablation is performed. The band gap dependence of the minimum structure size for transparent materials is identified.