Composite Right/Left-Handed Structures Fabricated on Gold Thin Films by Using Ultra-Short Laser Pulses
M. ZAMFIRESCU, R. DABU, M. DUMITRU, G. SAJIN, F. CRACIUNOIU, A. DINESCU

Abstract. The laser etching is proposed as a complementary tehnique to the chemical photo-lithography, in order to fabricate micro-structures with aplications in the GHz frequency range. Films of few-hundreds nm of gold deposited on glass or silicon are precisely processed by tightly focusing a femtosecond laser with 150 fs pulse duration, 775 nm wavelength, and energy of tens of nJ. When the laser fluence is hold just above the ablation threshold, the evaporated film leaves behind structures with thin lateral size of about 1 µm. Using this technique, the fabrication of micro-structures is demonstrated.
Keywords: laser etching, diffraction limit, microwave devices, metamaterials, transmission lines.