Femtosecond Laser Fabrication of Refractive/Diffractive Micro-Optical Components on Hard Brittle Materials

Micro-optical components exhibit significant potential applications in various fields such as imaging, optical fiber communication, and aerospace owing to their small size, light weight, and flexible design. It is imperative to fabricate micro-optical components on hard brittle materials to improve stability and broaden the optical transmission range. Therefore, femtosecond laser processing technology is demonstrated to be an efficient processing strategy for preparing refractive/diffractive micro-optical components on hard brittle materials compared to other established micromachining techniques. This study reviews recent advances in refractive/diffractive micro-optical components using femtosecond laser processing technologies. The applications of refractive/diffractive micro-optical components with high accuracy, efficiency, and quality in the fields of imaging, sensing, display, and integration are also summarized. Moreover, the challenges of femtosecond laser processing technologies and the outlook of micro-optical components are highlighted.