Laser Fabrication and Manipulation of an Optical Rotator Embedded inside a Transparent Solid Material

We report the fabrication and rotation of an optical rotator confined in a microcavity inside silica glass material, based on the techniques of femtosecond laser-assisted etching and laser manipulation. The rotator thus prepared may act as a micropump and micromixer. The material of this rotator is identical to that of the host substrate, because femtosecond laser-assisted etching is an internal removal process. As a result, the rotator as well as substrate has high chemical stability and good optical transparency. We also describe tests in which we demonstrated that this fabrication technique is versatile enough to allow one to parepare two types of rotators with different shapes.