In August 2017, Dr. Thibault J.-Y. Derrien and Dr. Yoann Levy published in Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group) (IF = 4.259) the paper called: „High-speed manufacturing of highly regular laser-induced periodic surface structures on metals: physical origin of regularity“. This research establishes the link between the propagation distance of surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) and the regularity of the laser-induced periodic surface structures obtained on a number of metal surfaces. From this discovery, predictions of the quality of the laser nanostructuring process have been made for a wide range of materials at several irradiation wavelengths. This work was performed in collaboration with the group of Prof. Orazi (Italy, University of Modena) where the highly-regular laser nanostructures were obtained at a record speed (1 cm² in 10 s).
Dr. Derrien has developed an SPP theory and made predictions for the regimes when intense laser irradiation can lead to the formation of periodic structures. Dr. Levy has supported the theory by performing modeling of SPP propagation evolution for several metals driven out of equilibrium. These results are highly promising for the development of controlled laser nanostructuring on large areas with superlasers that have been developed at the HiLASE Centre. This work has led to filing a first patent in the Czech Republic.
The manuscript can be freely downloaded here: http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-08788-z.
The research of Dr. Derrien is supported by the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (grant agreement “QuantumLaP”, No. 657424, http://www.quantumlap.eu).
The research of Dr. Levy is supported through the BIATRI project.