Nanograting formation in air through plasmonic near-field ablation induced by femtosecond laser pulses

Superimposed multiple shots of low-fluence femtosecond (fs) laser pulses form a periodic nanostructure on solid surfaces through ablation. We have demonstrated that the self-organization process of nanostructuring can be regulated to fabricate a homogeneous nanograting on the target surface in air. A simple two-step ablation process and an ablation technique using interfering fs laser beams were developed to control plasmonic near-fields generated by fs laser pulses. The results have shown the nature of a single spatial standing wave mode of surface plasmon polaritons of which periodically enhanced near-fields ablate the target surface, to fabricate the nanograting on gallium nitride (GaN) and metals such as stainless steel (SUS) and titanium (Ti).