Metamaterials and photonic crystals are presented as the main approaches to achieve artificial negative refractive materials. Alone or associated with lithography techniques, femtosecond laser constitutes a potential tool for manufacturing negative refractive materials in the range from GHz to optical frequencies. Multi-photon photopolymerization of transparent materials and micro/nano-machining of metallic thin films are promising methods to obtain negative refractive photonic crystals and, respectively, metamaterials. Preliminary experiments of thin-film micro-machining using a femtosecond oscillator-amplifier laser are described. Further methods to improve the femtosecond laser machining are proposed.

Date Published: 5 June 2008
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 7022, Advanced Laser Technologies 2007, 70220L (5 June 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.803938

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7022:
Advanced Laser Technologies 2007
Ivan Alexandrov Shcherbakov; Risto Myllylä; Alexander V. Priezzhev; Matti Kinnunen; Vladimir I. Pustovoy; Mikhail Yu. Kirillin; Alexey P. Popov, Editor(s)