Guodong Zhang, Anton Rudenko, Razvan Stoian, et al. Ultrafast Laser High-Aspect-Ratio Extreme Nanostructuring of Glass beyond /100[J]. Ultrafast science, 2025, 5(1).
DOI:
Guodong Zhang, Anton Rudenko, Razvan Stoian, et al. Ultrafast Laser High-Aspect-Ratio Extreme Nanostructuring of Glass beyond /100[J]. Ultrafast science, 2025, 5(1). DOI: 10.34133/ultrafastscience.0103.
Ultrafast Laser High-Aspect-Ratio Extreme Nanostructuring of Glass beyond /100
摘要
Abstract
The ultimate feature size is key in ultrafast laser material processing. A capacity to substantially exceed optical limits and to structure below 100 nm is essential to advance ultrafast processing into the field of metamaterials. Such achievement requires combining the control of optical near-fields and of material reactions while preserving the flexibility of long working distances
compatible with a mature laser process. Using subpicosecond and picosecond nondiffractive Bessel beams
we demonstrate unprecedented feature sizes below a hundredth of the incident 1-μm wavelength over an extended focus depth of tens of micrometers. Record features sizes
down to 7 nm
result from self-generated near-field light components initiated by cavities induced by far-field radiation in a back-surface illumination geometry. This sustains the generation of more confined near-field evanescent components along the laser scan with a nanometer pitch
perpendicular to the incident field direction
driving a superresolved laser structuring process via local thermal ablation. The near-field pattern is replicated with high robustness
advancing toward a 10-nm nanoscribing tool with a micrometer-sized laser pen. The process is controllable by the field orientation. The nondiffractive irradiation develops evanescent fields over the focusing length
resulting in high-aspect-ratio trenching with a nanometer section and a micrometer depth. Higher energy doses trigger the self-organization of quasi-periodic patterns seeded by spatially modulated scattering
similarly to optical modelocking. A predictive multipulse simulation method validates the far-field-induced near-field electromagnetic scenario of void nanochannel growth and replication
indicating the processing range and resolution on the surface and in the depth.