The course gives a detailed description of quartz glass, porous glasses, and glass-ceramics. Also explained are the lasers and laser systems that are used. The basic physical processes including densification of porous glasses, amorphization of glass-ceramics, and microprofiling of glass by laser ablation will be discussed. Microshaping of glass components by laser heating, smoothing of glass surfaces by plasma-assisted laser heating, aspherisation of optical surfaces by combined laser ablation heating will complete the course. Sample applications include: fiber-optical focusing, scattering, deflecting and other components for medicine, industry, communication, near-field optics, fiber-optical nets etc.; matrix and rasters of aspherical lenses for semiconductor lasers bars, and laser radiation homogenization.

Photonics technologies include integrated microelectronics, optoelectronics and optical memory. Devices utilizing these technologies are based on well-known photonics materials such as the semiconductors Si, GaAs and SiC as well as thin-film components, optical materials and optical fibers. This course will concentrate on laser technologies for semiconductor fabrication, thin-film deposition, lithography, and optical materials cutting and MOE-components fabrication. The course will also cover methods for assembling photonics devices like microoptical components for increased efficiency, coupling of fiber optical components, precision laser cutting of quartz glass-based LCD screens, as well as fabrication of complicated integrated microoptical devices. Depending on the interests of the audience, microelectronic technologies like laser lithography, laser cleaning, thin-films components (trimming), tuning, etc. can also be included.

Laser heating and ablation behavior are primary factors in microshaping. This course focuses on the analysis and synthesis of these factors that affect the quality of the product. They include the affects of temporal structures of pulses; the spatial structure of a laser beam; the liquid phase in the heating of the material; and the co-treatment affects of gas and water jet. The synthesis includes how to choose the best type of laser source and how to calculate its important parameters: power energy, pulse duration, shape and repetition. How to choose the best optical system and provide its parameters like the cross-sectional and longitudinal energy distribution at the working plane and how to choose the best handling and control algorithms will also be addressed.