Abstract

The advancement of micromachining by light intimately relies on laser development. Especially, the establishment of mode-locking technology had a major influence on this field, as the generation of picosecond and even femtosecond pulses brought the light-matter interaction to the non-thermal regime. However, laser-matter interaction is still an active field of research with many open questions [1]. Of special interest is the few-cycle pulses regime, enabled by the recent progresses in laser science which facilitate the generation of intense optical pulses consisting of only a few oscillations of the electric field. These close-to-single-cycle pulses have yet to be exploited in micromachining applications. This opens up new possibilities and regimes for material modification, and ultimately, when added to the already existing knowledge, all light irradiation regimes are covered - from the single-cycle to the continuous.

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