Ultrafast lasers: A new frontier for optical materials processing

Abstract

In the last years, ultrashort laser pulses have gone through the laboratory walls to burst into the industrial arena as a tool for material micro- and nanoprocessing. The number of industrial fields and specific applications is steadily growing, reaching the nanotechnology applications. Now, we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the CPA (chirped pulse amplification) technique which made available intense ultrashort (subpicosecond) pulses able to induce ablation of any material. This contribution tries to review the fundamentals of ultrafast lasers as well as some of their applications, emphasizing the processing of optical materials.