Rapid production of large-area deep sub-wavelength hybrid structures by femtosecond laser light-field tailoring

The goal of creation of large-area deep sub-wavelength nanostructures by femtosecond laser irradiation onto various materials is being hindered by the limited coherence length. Here, we report solution of the problem by light field tailoring of the incident beam with a phase mask, which serves generation of wavelets. Direct interference between the wavelets, here the first-order diffracted beams, and interference between a wavelet and its induced waves such as surface plasmon polariton are responsible for creation of microgratings and superimposed nanogratings, respectively. The principle of wavelets interference enables extension of uniformly induced hybrid structures containing deep sub-wavelength nanofeatures to macro-dimension. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.