Abstract

We show, measuring the surface topography of a sample in which damage lines have been written by scanning a femtosecond laser, that nano structures in the focus (called in the literature: nanogratings, nanoplans, nanocrakcs) are nano-shearings, with all the same sign. We call this the scissor effect that gives rise to chiral structures. By separating the shearings dependent on the writing direction from the one not dependent, we show, first, that the shearings in the tail of the laser tracks are only defined by the laser scan line orientation not by its direction, and second, that the shearings dependent on the direction of laser scanning and changing of sign with the scanning direction are perpendicular to the laser polarization We call this the pen effect.

© 2007 Optical Society of America