Fabrication of amorphous-crystalline micro- and nanostructures in silicon using ultrashort laser pulses

Silicon is one of the key-materials of nowadays technology. This is partly related to its special phase change dynamics characteristics. In particular, upon pulsed laser irradiation, silicon can re-solidify either in the crystalline (c-) or amorphous (a-) phase depending on the local supercooling achieved [1]. This feature has recently been used to produce non-ablative LIPSS (Laser Induced Periodic Surface Structures [2]) in crystalline silicon upon multiple laser pulse exposure. The induced structures consist of a-c-fringes with subwavelength period [3].