The mechanism of ablation of solids by intense femtosecond laser pulses is described in an explicit analytical form. It is shown that at high intensities when the ionization of the target material is complete before the end of the pulse, the ablation mechanism is the same for both metals and dielectrics. The physics of this new ablation regime involves ion acceleration in the electrostatic field caused by charge separation created by energetic electrons escaping from the target. The formulas for ablation thresholds and ablation rates for metals and dielectrics, combining the laser and target parameters, are derived and compared to experimental data. The calculated dependence of the ablation thresholds on the pulse duration is in agreement with the experimental data in a femtosecond range, and it is linked to the dependence for nanosecond pulses.

We demonstrate a new principle of optical trapping and manipulation increasing more than 1000 times the manipulation distance by harnessing strong thermal forces while suppressing their stochastic nature with optical vortex beams. Our approach expands optical manipulation of particles into a gas media and provides a full control over trapped particles, including the optical transport and pinpoint positioning of $\sim${}100\,\,$\mu${}m objects over a meter-scale distance with \ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}10\,\,$\mu${}m accuracy.

We utilize the interaction of tightly focused ultrashort pulses with transparent media to imprint their local polarization in the focal region. In particular, we demonstrate that this technique allows for a subwavelength resolution diagnostic of complex polarization states including the presence of the longitudinal component of the electric field. Moreover, we demonstrate the first ever material ablation with the longitudinal electric field of femtosecond pulses.

We report production of nanostructured magnetic carbon foam by a high-repetition-rate, high-power laser ablation of glassy carbon in $\mathrm{Ar}$ atmosphere. A combination of characterization techniques revealed that the system contains both $s{p}^2$ and $s{p}^3$ bonded carbon atoms. The material is a form of carbon containing graphite-like sheets with hyperbolic curvature, as proposed for “schwarzite.” The foam exhibits ferromagnetic-like behavior up to $90\mathrm{K}$, with a narrow hysteresis curve and a high saturation magnetization. Such magnetic properties are very unusual for a carbon allotrope. Detailed analysis excludes impurities as the origin of the magnetic signal. We postulate that localized unpaired spins occur because of topological and bonding defects associated with the sheet curvature, and that these spins are stabilized due to the steric protection offered by the convoluted sheets.

In this Letter we present the first (to our knowledge) demonstration of material modification using tightly focused single femtosecond laser vortex pulses. Double-charge femtosecond vortices were synthesized with a polarization-singularity beam converter based on light propagation in a uniaxial anisotropic medium and then focused using moderate- and high-NA optics (viz., $\mathrm{NA}=0.45$ and 0.9) to ablate fused silica and soda-lime glass. By controlling the pulse energy, we consistently machine micrometer-size ring-shaped structures with $<100\mathrm{nm}$ uniform groove thickness.

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