Atomically precise yet rapid micromachining via projection-based femtosecond laser ablation

It is extremely challenging to achieve atomic scale depth resolutions with top-down micromachining techniques while simultaneously achieving high processing rates. Here, we have overcome this challenge by projecting patterned light sheets of spatio-temporally focused femtosecond laser. It has enabled ablation-based micromachining of thin gold films with depths of cut between 7–14 nm, depth resolvability of 1–3 atoms, and linewidths smaller than 500 nm. Furthermore, we have achieved a processing rate of 9 mm²/s, which is 10–10⁵ times faster than the state-of-art. Thus, our process enables rapid and atomically precise machining of metal thin films.