LASER PROCESSING AND CHEMISTRY: APPLICATIONS IN NANOPATTERNING, MATERIAL SYNTHESIS AND BIOTECHNOLOGY

This overview reports recent experimental and theoretical investigations on laser processing. Among these are the submicron- and nano-patterning of surfaces by means of both nearfield optical techniques and microlens arrays formed by self-organization processes; the pulsed- laser deposition (PLD) of thin films including organic, inorganic and composite materials, and the modification of material surfaces. The latter field, and in particular the surface modification of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE, Teflon), has various different applications in biotechnology and medicine. Many of these results have been achieved during the long-standing collaboration between the groups in Linz and Bucharest.