The application of ultrashort pulses in materials science is also very promising, because of the important engineering applications and commercial opportunities. Building once again on our work in micromachining, the deterministic properties are used to deposit thin films of wide-bandgap material with epitaxial quality. Micromachining with lasers will continue to be extremely important. Calculation has shown that resolution down to 20 nm should be achievable. Consequently, work to reach the resolution limit will be a CUOS priority.
Important applications are in photonic bandgap and integrated circuit repair.
An important and related area is the field of Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy, where the plume, rich in highly charged states, can be used to quickly identify alloy composition. An area neglected so far but that needs attention is that of ultrafast detectors such as the streak camera. This application uses CUOS expertise fully. Only absorption transients can be observed this way. Often, we would like to directly observe the luminescence coming from the excited state under study.