This chapter contains sections titled:

• Introduction and Motivation

• Ultrafast Laser Materials Interactions: Electronic Excitation

  • Metals: The Two-temperature Model

  • Semiconductors

    • Ultrafast Laser-induced Melting in Semiconductors

    • Ultrafast Laser Ablation in Semiconductors

    • Theoretical Studies of Femtosecond Laser Interactions with Semiconductors

  • Insulators

    • Ultrafast Ablation of Insulators

    • Self-focusing of Ultrashort Pulses for Three-dimensional Structures

    • Color-center Formation by Femtosecond Laser Irradiation

• Ultrafast Laser-materials Interaction: Vibrational Excitation

  • Ablation of Inorganic Materials by Resonant Vibrational Excitation

  • Ablation of Organic Materials by Resonant Vibrational Excitation

• Photochemistry in Femtosecond Laser-materials Interactions

  • Sulfidation of Silicon Nanostructures by Femtosecond Irradiation

  • Nitridation of Metal Surfaces Using Picosecond MIR Radiation

• Photomechanical Effects at Femtosecond Timescales

  • Shock Waves, Phase Transitions and Tribology

  • Coherent Phonon Excitations in Metals

  • Ultrafast Laser-induced Forward Transfer (LIFT)

• Pulsed Laser Deposition

  • Near-infrared Pulsed Laser Deposition

  • Infrared Pulsed Laser Deposition of Organic Materials on Micro- and Nanostructures

• Future Trends in Ultrafast Laser Micromachining

  • Ultrashort-pulse Materials Modification at High Pulse-repetition Frequency

  • Pulsed Laser Deposition at High Pulse-repetition Frequency

    • Deposition of Inorganic Thin Films

    • Deposition of Organic Thin Films

  • Picosecond Processing of Carbon Nanotubes

  • Sub-micron Parallel-process Patterning of Materials with Ultraviolet Lasers

• Summary and Conclusions