Breakthroughs in Photonics 2012: Femtosecond-Laser Nanomachining

The latest breakthroughs in the field of nanoscale structuring using ultrashort laser pulses are presented, all exploiting highly nonlinear effects. Significant advances have been made in improving the resolution in two-photon-polymerization, as well as for applying this technique to create functional nanostructures. In glassy materials, the inscription of self-organized periodic nanostructures resulting in artificial birefringence, as well as periodic subwavelength structures for fiber and volume Bragg gratings, has emerged. In addition, latest results in the fascinating field of biophotonics are presented, where tremendous progress has been made allowing the manipulation of living cells.