People involvedResearch line leader
Staff researchers
Giacomo Corrielli Francesco Ceccarelli
Associate researchers
Andrea Crespi Giulio Cerullo
Roberta Ramponi
Post docs
Petra Paiè Simone Atzeni
Assegnisti Luca Pertoldi Alessio Pansieri
PhD students Simone Piacentini Federico Sala Roberto Memeo Andrea Zanoni Ciro Pentangelo
Master thesis students
Riccardo Albiero Federico Bassi Mario Buffone Andrea Comi Pasquale Barbato Emanuele Urbinati
Femtosecond laser micromachining of transparent materials is a rapidly expanding field that started in the late '90s. It has evolved from an exotic phenomenological observation into a robust, flexible and powerful microfabrication technology, which produces devices that can compete with those fabricated by standard technologies. In addition, femtosecond laser micromachining has unique three-dimensional capabilities that enables unprecedented designs and device architectures.
The core idea behind this technology is nonlinear absorption. The extremely high intensity achieved in the focal volume of a focussed femtosecond laser pulse induces nonlinear phenomena such as multiphoton or tunneling ionization and avalanche ionization, thus producing a very localized deposit of energy in the volume of the material. Suitable motion of the sample can produce 3D modifications.
The basic devices that can be fabricated by this technology are optical waveguides and microfluidic channels (the latter requires a subsequent etching step). Further processing tasks that can be performed by this technology are: welding, cutting, surface texturing, etc. Combination of all these capabilities result extremely powerful in producing complex photonic and optofluidic devices that are also characterized in our labs.
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