Femtosecond laser fabrication of sub-diffraction nanoripples on wet Al surface in multi-filamentation regime: High optical harmonics effects?

•Multi-filamentation of high power femtosecond laser pulses in water.•Fabrication of sub-diffraction surface ripples on wet aluminum by high optical harmonics. Relief ripples with sub-diffraction periods (≈λlas/3, λlas/4) were produced on a aluminum surface immersed in water and irradiated in a multi-filamentation regime by focused 744nm femtosecond laser pulses with highly supercritical, multi-GW peak powers. For the VUV (8.5eV) surface plasmon resonance on the wet aluminum surface, such small-scale surface nanogratings can be produced by high – second and third – optical harmonics, coming to the surface from the optical filaments in the water layer. Then, the sub-diffraction surface ripples may appear through interference of their transverse electric fields with the longitudinal electric fields of their counterparts, scattered on the surface roughness and appeared as the corresponding high-energy, high-wavenumber surface polaritons.