With the advent of ultrafast lasers, new manufacturing techniques have come into existence. In micromachining, the use of femtosecond lasers not only offers the possibility for three-dimensional monolithic fabrication inside… Click to show full abstract
With the advent of ultrafast lasers, new manufacturing techniques have come into existence. In micromachining, the use of femtosecond lasers not only offers the possibility for three-dimensional monolithic fabrication inside a single optically transparent material, but also a means for remotely, and arbitrarily, deforming substrates with nanometer resolution. Exploiting this principle and combining it with flexure design, we demonstrate a monolithic micro-mirror entirely made with a femtosecond laser and whose orientation is tuned in a non-contact manner by exposing some part of the device to low energy femtosecond pulses. Given the non-contact nature of the process, the alignment can be very precisely controlled with a resolution that is many orders of magnitude better than conventional techniques based on mechanical positioners.
               
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