A system for 3D nanoprocessing in transparent materials and living cells

The system femt-O-cut^® uses compact femtosecond NIR lasers for 3-dimensional nanoprocessing in transparent materials. Low energy (sub-nanojoule to nanojoule) pulses at high repetition rates of up to 90 MHz are focused by high numerical aperture (NA 1.3) optics for optical breakdown in sub-femtoliter volumes. The beam intensity is regulated by a motorized attenuator. Several TW/cm² can be reached in the focal region to enable ultraprecise ablation with a minimum cut size below 70 nm (FWHM) by multiphoton ionization.
The device is based on a conventional microscope which is equipped with a high-speed galvoscanning unit. Fullframe scans, region-of-interest (ROI) scans, line scans as well as single point ablation (spot scan, drilling) can be performed with submicron accuracy. A motorized stage is used for large area processing. For vertical positioning the focusing optics are mounted on a piezo-driven stage with an accuracy of 40 nm.
femt-O-cut^® also represents a diagnostic tool for non-invasive tomography. This allows for the observation of the samples by high-resolution imaging to select the target area as well as to monitor the result of the ablation procedure.