Femtosecond Laser Micro- and Nanopatterning of the Fused Silica Tube to Enhance Capillary Effect

Abstract

Femtosecond lasers have considerable advantages over conventional lasers for micromachining of transparent materials, and here we use these advantages to fabricate a new type of glass capillary tube with micro- and nanopatterns on the inner surface of the tube. In terms of femtosecond laser patterning, we focused on the polarization state of the femtosecond laser and found that the variation of polarization affected the performance of capillary tubes, especially capillary rise and contact angle. We subsequently confirmed that the number of micropatterns and the direction of nanoripples most greatly affected the capillary rise. (C) 2012 The Japan Society of Applied Physics