Rapid Fabrication of Smooth Micro-Optical Components on Glass by Etching-Assisted Femtosecond Laser Modification

Femtosecond laser (fs-laser) is unfavorable in applications for the fabrication of micro-optical devices on hard materials owing to the problems of low fabrication efficiency and high surface roughness. Herein, a hybrid method combining fs-laser scanning, subsequent etching, and annealing was proposed to realize micro-optical devices with low roughness on glass. Compared to traditional laser ablation, the fabrication efficiency in this work was improved by one order of magnitude, and the surface roughness was decreased to 15 nm. Using this method, aspherical convex microlenses and spherical concave microlenses that possess excellent focusing and imaging properties are realized on photosensitive glass. The diameter and height of the microlenses were controlled by adjusting the fabrication parameters. These results indicate that the fs-laser-based hybrid method will open new opportunities for fabricating micro-optical components on hard materials.