Ultrafast laser-induced self-organized nanostructuring in transparent dielectrics: fundamentals and applications

Inscribing functional micro-nano-structures in transparent dielectrics enables constructing all-inorganic photonic devices with excellent integration, robustness, and durability, but remains a great challenge for conventional fabrication techniques. Recently, ultrafast laser-induced self-organization engineering has emerged as a promising rapid prototyping platform that opens up facile and universal approaches for constructing various advanced nanophotonic elements and attracted tremendous attention all over the world. This paper summarizes the history and important milestones in the development of ultrafast laser-induced self-organized nanostructuring (ULSN) in transparent dielectrics and reviews recent research progresses by introducing newly reported physical phenomena, theoretical mechanisms/models, regulation techniques, and engineering applications, where representative works related to next-generation light manipulation, data storage, optical detecting are discussed in detail. This paper also presents an outlook on the challenges and future trends of ULSN, and important issues merit further exploration.