Ultrafast and ultrasmall: femtosecond pulses and nanophotonics

Femtosecond laser pulses provide an opportunity to fabricate optical devices at the microscale and to design new materials for optoelectronic applications. By marrying the ultrafast with the ultrasmall we can fabricate novel nonlinear nanophotonic devices that can serve as all-optical logic gates for future telecommunication needs. In this lecture I will provide an overview of our work on femtosecond laser micromachining of transparent materials, femtosecond laser doping of semiconductors, and recent advances we have made to realize nanowire based all-optical logic gates.