A new technical paper, “Extreme optical nonlinearities unveiled by ultrafast laser filamentation in semiconductors,” was published by researchers at Abbe Center of Photonics, Laboratoire Hubert Curien et al.
Abstract
“Sky-high optical nonlinearities make semiconductors ideal platforms for multifunctional photonic devices. The fabrication of such complex devices could greatly benefit from in-volume ultrafast laser writing for monolithic and contactless integration. Ironically, as exemplified for Si, nonlinearities act as an efficient immune system that self-protects the material from internal permanent modifications. Predicting high-intensity ultrashort-pulse propagation beyond Si is further limited by incomplete descriptions of carrier dynamics in narrow-gap materials. Here, we demonstrate that filamentation universally dictates ultrashort laser pulse propagation in various semiconductors. The effective key nonlinear parameters extracted differ markedly from past measurements with low-intensity pulses, while temporal scaling laws for these parameters are also derived. Based on these findings, appropriate temporal-spectral shaping is proposed for tailored energy deposition inside semiconductors. The effective parameters also provide predictive inputs for semiconductor backside processing, microelectronics security, and high-harmonic, supercontinuum and terahertz wave generation.”
Find the technical paper here. February 2026.
Chambonneau, M., Blothe, M., Fedorov, V.Y. et al. Extreme optical nonlinearities unveiled by ultrafast laser filamentation in semiconductors. Nat Commun 17, 1701 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69530-w. Open Access Create Commons license.
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