On the bending strength of fused silica flexures fabricated by ultrafast lasers [Invited]

This paper reports on the mechanical properties of fused silica flexures manufactured by a two-step process combining femtosecond lasers exposure below the ablation threshold and chemical etching. Flexural strengths as high as 2.7 GPa were measured, demonstrating that femtosecond lasers can be efficiently used to produce arbitrarily shaped high-strength mechanical devices, opening new opportunities for the design of monolithically integrated optomechanical devices. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America