Search

Structural wrinkles in nature have been widely imitated to enhance the surface functionalities of objects, especially three-dimensional (3D) architectured wrinkles, holding promise for emerging applications in mechanical, electrical, and biological processes. However, the fabrication of user-defined 3D nanowrinkled architectures is a long-pending challenge. Here, we propose a bottom-up laser direct assembly strategy to fabricate multidimensional nanowrinkled architectures in a single-material one-step process. Through the introduction of laser-induced thermal transition into a 3D nanoprinting process for leading the point-by-point nanoscale wrinkling and the self-organization of wrinkle structures, we have demonstrated the program-controlled and on-demand fabrication of multidimensional nanowrinkled structures. Moreover, the precise control of wrinkle morphology with an optimal wavelength of 40 nanometers and the regulation of the dynamic transformation of wrinkled cellular microstructures via interfacial stress mismatch engineering have been achieved. This study provides a universal protocol for constructing nearly arbitrary nanowrinkled architectures and facilitates a new paradigm in nanostructure manufacturing.

Memristors are regarded as one of the key devices to break through the traditional Von Neumann computer architecture due to their capability of simulating the function of neural synapses. Among various memristive materials, two-dimensional (2D) materials are promising candidates to build advanced memristors with extremely high integration density and low power consumption. However, memristors based on 2D materials usually suffer from poor endurance and retention due to their vulnerability to material degradation during the formation/fusing processes of conductive filament channels within the switching media of 2D materials. Here, a new memristor architecture based on a WS2/MoS2 2D semiconducting heterojunction (metal/heterojunction/metal, MHM) is proposed, which is completely different from the conventional metal/insulator/metal (MIM) sandwich structure. Through the introduction of a type-II 2D heterojunction, a resistance switching mechanism based on band modulation rather than the conductive filaments can be realized to eliminate the material degradation during the set/reset processes. A prototype MHM memristor based on the WS2/MoS2 heterojunction is successfully developed with a large switching on/off ratio up to 104 and a clearly extended endurance over 120 switching cycles, showing the advantage of the 2D WS2/MoS2 heterojunction over the individual MoS2 or WS2 layers in memristive performance. The proposed method for the MHM-type 2D memristor has the potential to achieve a large-scale integrated memristor matrix with low power consumption and high integration density, which is promising for future artificial intelligence and brain-like computing systems.

The precise placement of semiconductor nanowires (NWs) into two- or three-dimensional (2D/3D) micro-/nanoarchitectures is a key for the construction of integrated functional devices. However, long-pending challenges still exist in high-resolution 3D assembly of semiconductor NWs. Here, we have achieved directional assembly of zinc oxide (ZnO) NWs into nearly arbitrary 3D architectures with high spatial resolution using two-photon polymerization. The NWs can regularly align in any desired direction along the laser scanning pathway. Through theoretical calculation and control experiments, we unveiled the laser-induced assembly mechanism and found that the nonoptical forces are the dominant factor leading to the directional assembly of ZnO NWs. A ZnO-NW-based polarization-resolved UV photodetector of excellent photoresponsivity was fabricated to demonstrate the potential application of the assembled ZnO NWs. This work is expected to promote the research on NW-based integrated devices such as photonic integrated circuits, sensors, and metamaterial with unprecedented controllability of the NW's placement in three dimensions.

The widespread use of stimuli-responsive hydrogels is closely related to their synthesis efficiency. However, the widely used thermal-responsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) hydrogels usually require a time-consuming synthesis process to produce (more than 12 h) and exhibit a relatively slow response speed in the field of cryo-polymerization. In this study, a sequence of thawing polymerization after freezing polymerization by a two-step method of free radical polymerization for the efficient synthesis of PNIPAM hydrogels (merely 2 h) with an excellent comprehensive performance is demonstrated. Results show that the overall performance of the as-synthesized PNIPAM hydrogels is at the top level among reported works despite the significantly reduced preparation time. Moreover, after incorporating multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs), the PNIPAM hydrogels exhibit a rapid near-infrared (NIR) light-response and programmable shape-morphing capability. It is believed that such a viable and time-saving synthetic method for producing PNIPAM hydrogels of high performance will lay a solid foundation for drug delivery and smart actuators.

We report a water medium–assisted composite laser cutting (WMACLC) technology for what is believed to be the first time to achieve single-pass separation of frosted glass (FG). The water medium was used to flatten the surface of FG to reduce the diffuse reflection and random refraction of the incident laser. The simulation results of picosecond pulsed laser Bessel beam (PPLBB) intensity distribution in FG showed that the peak intensity in the presence of water can reach about 24 times and 2.3 times that in the absence of water when the PPLBB is 0.08 mm and 0.3 mm below the upper surface of FG, respectively. A PPLBB with higher intensity can be formed along the thickness direction to realize the material modification. A coaxial CW laser provides the thermal tensile stress required for separation. Finally, high-quality separation of FG was achieved using the WMACLC technology with a speed of 50 mm/s. No deviation in the separation track and no edge collapse occurred. The roughness Sa of the separated sidewall is less than 0.3 µm.

Surfaces with strong anti-reflection properties have attracted the wide attention of scientists and engineers due to their great application potential in many fields. Traditional laser blackening techniques are limited by the material and surface profile, which are not able to be applied to film and large-scale surfaces. Inspired by the rainforest, a new design for anti-reflection surface structures was proposed by constructing micro-forests. To evaluate this design, we fabricated micro-forests on an Al alloy slab by laser induced competitive vapor deposition. By controlling the deposition of the laser energy, the surface can be fully covered by forest-like micro-nano structures. The porous and hierarchical micro-forests performed a minimum and average reflectance of 1.47% and 2.41%, respectively, in the range of 400-1200 nm. Different from the traditional laser blackening technique, the micro-scaled structures were formed due to the aggregation of the deposited nanoparticles instead of the laser ablation groove. Therefore, this method would lead to little surface damage and can also be applied to the aluminum film with a thickness of 50 µm. The black aluminum film can be used to produce the large-scale anti-reflection shell. Predictably, this design and the LICVD method are simple and efficient, which can broaden the application of the anti-reflection surface in many fields such as visible-light stealth, precision optical sensors, optoelectronic devices, and aerospace radiation heat transfer device.

Metasurfaces have been verified as an ideal way to control electromagnetic waves within an optically thin interface. In this paper, a design method of a tunable metasurface integrated with vanadium dioxide (VO2) is proposed to realize independent control of geometric and propagation phase modulation. The reversible conversion of VO2 between insulator phase and metal phase can be realized by controlling the ambient temperature, which enables the metasurface to be switched quickly between split-ring and double-ring structures. The phase characteristics of 2-bit coding units and the electromagnetic scattering characteristics of arrays composed of different arrangements are analyzed in detail, which confirms the independence of geometric and propagation phase modulation in the tunable metasurface. The experimental results demonstrate that the fabricated regular array and random array samples have different broadband low reflection frequency bands before and after the phase transition of VO2, and the 10 dB reflectivity reduction bands can be switched quickly between C/X and Ku bands, which are in good agreement with the numerical simulation. This method realizes the switching function of metasurface modulation mode by controlling the ambient temperature, which provides a flexible and feasible idea for the design and fabrication of stealth metasurfaces.

We investigate the optical coupling of orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes in a multimode waveguide assisted by a lossy single-mode waveguide. By utilizing coupled mode theory, we show that the coupling coefficients between two OAM modes with opposite rotation directions become imaginary-valued in cylinder waveguides, which further gives rise to polarization-locked wave dynamics. Any injections with different polarizations finally evolve into linear polarization (LP) modes, as the output modes are synthetized by antisymmetric supermodes of two OAM modes. In addition, non-Hermitian asymmetric couplings are induced in elliptical waveguides, which stem from the interaction between synthetical gauge fields and dissipation. By increasing the ellipticity of waveguides, the degree of asymmetric coupling increases, and the system experiences a phase transition, which can be reflected from propagation characteristics of OAM modes. The study provides a promising approach for controlling modal coupling of OAM modes and may find potential applications in OAM generation and polarization conversion.

Superhydrophobic surfaces with a slip effect have been proven to be effective to achieve surface drag reduction. In this paper, we fabricated superhydrophobic disks via laser ablation and chemical modification, and their drag-reduction performance is tested by a rheometer. However, the superhydrophobic disk achieves a limited drag-reduction effect (33.5% in maximum) with poor consistency (decay rapidly as rotating speed increases). To enhance the drag-reduction performance of the superhydrophobic surfaces, surfaces with tunable patterns consisting of superhydrophobic and hydrophobic surfaces are proposed. The difference in wettability and slip length between different regions is employed to control the flow direction. The effect of different patterns is investigated both experimentally and numerically, and the results indicate that the pattern distribution performs a great impact on the drag-reduction effect. The pattern consistent with the primary flow can not only enhance the effect (60.3% in maximum) but also the consistency (maintained at a higher rotating speed) of drag-reduction. On the contrary, the pattern perpendicular to the flow direction is harmful to drag reduction and can even increase the drag.

Memristors are regarded as one of the key devices to break through the traditional Von Neumann computer architecture due to their capability of simulating the function of neural synapses. Among various memristive materials, two-dimensional (2D) materials are promising candidates to build advanced memristors with extremely high integration density and low power consumption. However, memristors based on 2D materials usually suffer from poor endurance and retention due to their vulnerability to material degradation during the formation/fusing processes of conductive filament channels within the switching media of 2D materials. Here, a new memristor architecture based on a WS2/MoS2 2D semiconducting heterojunction (metal/heterojunction/metal, MHM) is proposed, which is completely different from the conventional metal/insulator/metal (MIM) sandwich structure. Through the introduction of a type-II 2D heterojunction, a resistance switching mechanism based on band modulation rather than the conductive filaments can be realized to eliminate the material degradation during the set/reset processes. A prototype MHM memristor based on the WS2/MoS2 heterojunction is successfully developed with a large switching on/off ratio up to 104 and a clearly extended endurance over 120 switching cycles, showing the advantage of the 2D WS2/MoS2 heterojunction over the individual MoS2 or WS2 layers in memristive performance. The proposed method for the MHM-type 2D memristor has the potential to achieve a large-scale integrated memristor matrix with low power consumption and high integration density, which is promising for future artificial intelligence and brain-like computing systems.

An efficient and flexible method using femtosecond laser bursts assisted by wet etching is presented to fabricate large-area high-quality microlens arrays (MLAs) on a silica glass surface. In this method, femtosecond laser bursts can ablate micro craters on silica glass in a fast, single-step process by controlling the electron density and a high-speed scanning galvanometer, and the influence mechanism of the number of pulses within a burst on the accuracy and quality of micro craters is analyzed in detail. The experimental results show that the preparation efficiency of micro craters is significantly improved to approximately 32,700 per second. By subsequent acid etching, concave microlenses with controllable dimensions, shapes, and alignments are easily obtained. A large area close-packed hexagonal concave MLA is successfully fabricated by using this method and shows high surface quality and uniformity, which excellently demonstrates the feasibility and flexibility of rapidly fabricating MLAs in the burst regime.

A space channel design approach achieves dynamic meta-holography with high frame rate and large frame number., The hologram is an ideal method for displaying three-dimensional images visible to the naked eye. Metasurfaces consisting of subwavelength structures show great potential in light field manipulation, which is useful for overcoming the drawbacks of common computer-generated holography. However, there are long-existing challenges to achieving dynamic meta-holography in the visible range, such as low frame rate and low frame number. In this work, we demonstrate a design of meta-holography that can achieve 228 different holographic frames and an extremely high frame rate (9523 frames per second) in the visible range. The design is based on a space channel metasurface and a high-speed dynamic structured laser beam modulation module. The space channel consists of silicon nitride nanopillars with a high modulation efficiency. This method can satisfy the needs of a holographic display and be useful in other applications, such as laser fabrication, optical storage, optics communications, and information processing.

Laminated glass has a wide range of applications, but the cutting process is too cumbersome. In this paper, a novel laser composite separation method was proposed to separate the laminated glass by one time and simplify the cutting process from five steps to two steps for the first time by skillfully combining laser-induced thermal-crack propagation and laser thermal melting. This method generated three laser foci, and each laser focus is acting on one layer of laminated glass. Then, the composite mechanism combining laser-induced thermal-crack propagation for glass layers and laser thermal melting separation for PVB layer was realized to separate entire laminated glass. The experiments of separating laminated glass with thickness of 5 + 0.38 + 5 mm were carried out by laser composite separation successfully, and the separation side wall was very smooth (roughness of glass layer reached 10.24 nm) without any separation defects such as chipping, micro-cracks or subsurface damage. A mathematical model was also established to analyze the separation mechanism.

Thick glass is a widely used functional structure material, but the existing cutting methods are low quality, complex and time-consuming. In this paper, a flexible multi-focus laser separation technology (FMFLS) was developed to separate thick glass without pre-processing and follow-up polishing for the first time. The FMFLS adopted holed focusing lenses to generate multiple independent laser foci along glass thickness direction, which are beneficial to achieve optimal temperature and thermal stress distributions during separation. The positions and power densities of laser foci are flexible, which could be adjusted by changing the distances between focusing lenses to separate glass with different thickness and properties. By using FMFLS, a penetration crack could be formed and controlled easily by thermal stress to achieve safe and high-quality separation of glass. The FMFLS system was designed by optical analyzing and verified via experimental research. A numerical simulation analysis was also established to reveal the separating mechanism of FMFLS. A series of FMFLS experiments were carried out to separate the soda-lime and low-iron glass with thickness from 10 to 20 mm, which is 2–4 times thicker than that of traditional laser separating technologies. The results show that FMFLS can achieve a high-quality separation (roughness = 1.6 nm, scan length = 200 μm) of thick glass without any contamination, subsurface damage or edge breakage.

Due to excellent properties, Cr12MoV mold steel, 9Cr18 stainless steel and H13A cemented carbide are widely used in industry. In this paper, the effect of absorption of laser light on ablation efficiency and roughness have been studied using a picosecond pulse Nd:YVO4 laser. The experimental results reveal that laser wavelength, original surface roughness and chemical composition play an important role in controlling ablation efficiency and roughness. Firstly, higher ablation efficiency with lower surface roughness is achieved on the ablation of 9Cr18 at 532, comparing with 1064 nm. Secondly, the ablation efficiency increases while the Ra of the ablated region decreases with the decrease of original surface roughness on ablation of Cr12MoV mold steel at 532 nm. Thirdly, the ablation efficiency of H13A cemented carbide is much higher than 9Cr18 stainless steel and Cr12MoV mold steel at 1064 nm. Scanning electron microscopy images reveals the formation of pores on the surface of 9Cr18 stainless steel and Cr12MoV mold steel at 532 nm while no pores are formed at 1064 nm. As to H13A cemented carbide, worm-like structure is formed at 1064 nm. The synergetic effects of the heat accumulation, plasma shielding and ablation threshold on laser ablation efficiency and machining quality were analyzed and discussed systematically in this paper.

By combining a picosecond Bessel laser and a continuous-wave (CW) fiber Gaussian laser with the same optical axis, a composite laser beam separation (CLBS) technology that allows the fast, high-quality separation of brittle transparent materials was developed for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. In this experiment, 1-mm-thick soda lime glass was separated using this CLBS technology, and the CLBS separation mechanism was analyzed. The experimental results show that a separated surface similar to frosted polishing can be obtained by CLBS, and the edge chipping of the separated upper surface was no more than 0.5 µm. The separated sidewall was flat and smooth without separation defects such as cracks or broken edges, and the surface roughness (Ra) was 0.12 µm. The separation speed reached 12 mm/s and can be further improved by increasing the CW laser power density. This research provides a new way for lasers to separate brittle transparent materials.

Dual laser beam separation (DLBS) is a novel separating technology developed for KDP crystal with high speed, no contact and excellent separated quality. However, its separating mechanism has not been studied thoroughly and fatal fragmentation always occurred with unknown causes. Meanwhile, there is a lack of research about the material types that DLBS can be adopted. As the real time monitor of 3D stress/strain distribution during separating are difficult, the experimental way to further improve the DLBS is impracticable. In this study, a finite element model was established to achieve a complete understanding of the mechanisms involved in DLBS for transparent inorganic materials. The main behavior of separating stress and the evolution of potential risks during DLBS were analyzed, meanwhile, the influencing mechanisms of critical separating parameters on dynamic temperature and thermal stress distribution were also investigated. Based on these simulation analysis, two significant system improvements for DLBS were put forward, investigated and verified, which improved the separating thickness range, quality, safety and efficiency of DLBS markedly. The simulation results also indicated the material types that DLBS can be adapted to, which have important engineering value for guiding the future application of DLBS technology. Keywords: Laser material processing, Laser cutting, Numerical simulation, Laser-matter interaction, Brittle material, Transparent inorganic materials

KDP crystal is an important electro-optic material in various laser systems, and belongs to very difficult-to-cut material, especially for thick crystals. In this study, an innovative separation method—laser multi-focus separation technology (LMFS) for thick KDP crystal has been developed by skillfully combining femtosecond laser and LMFS optical system of fiber laser for the first time. In this way, the uniformities of temperature and thermal stress distributions along crystal thickness and the utilization efficiency of the laser energy are greatly improved. A penetration crack along crystal thickness could be formed and its propagation direction could be controlled to achieve safe and high-quality separation. The separating thickness of LMFS (50 mm) is at least 4 times thicker than that of existing laser separating technologies, and the separating efficiency of LMFS (200 µm/s) is at least 20 times faster than that of traditional mechanical methods. The generation mechanism of multi-focus was expounded by optical analysis and design, and verified by an established LMFS optical system. A numerical simulation was also established to analyze the dynamic distributions of temperature and thermal stress of KDP crystal generated by the LMFS optical system, and explore the separation mechanism of LMFS. In addition, a window of appropriate processing parameters was predicted by a series of numerical simulations to successfully separate a thick KDP crystal with the thickness of 50 mm. The quality of the separated sidewall surface was clean and flat (roughness of 10.857 nm, flatness of 3.5389 µm) without any contamination, subsurface damage and edge fragmentation. The experimental results proved the feasibility of LMFS, and are in good agreement with the theoretical analysis.

In this paper, the effects of pulse repetition rate on ablation efficiency and quality of Cr12MoV cold work mold steel have been studied using a picosecond (ps) pulse Nd:YVO4 laser system at λ= 1064 nm. The experimental results of area ablation on target surface reveal that laser repetition rate plays a significant role in controlling ablation efficiency and quality. Increasing the laser repetition rate, while keeping a constant mean power improves the ablation efficiency and quality. For each laser mean power, there is an optimal repetition rate to achieve a higher laser ablation efficiency with low surface roughness. A high ablation efficiency of 42.29, 44.11 and 47.52 μm3/mJ, with surface roughness of 0.476, 0.463 and 0.706 μm could be achieved at laser repetition rate of 10 MHz, for laser mean power of 15, 17 and 19 W, respectively. Scanning electron microcopy images revels that the surface morphology evolves from rough with numerous craters, to flat without pores when we increased the laser repetition rate. The effects of laser repetition rate on the heat accumulation, plasma shield and ablation threshold were analyzed by numerical simulation, spectral analysis and multi-laser shot, respectively. The synergetic effects of laser repetition rate on laser ablation rate and machining quality were analyzed and discussed systemically in this paper.

Ultra-fast lasers can realize selective welding of glasses through nonlinear effect and have the advantages of having high welding accuracy, having small heat-affected zone, having high joint strength and not requiring intermediate absorption layer, which provides a new idea for chip packaging. However, this method is limited to the condition of optical contact, which is difficult to use in engineering applications. To solve this problem, an innovative seal welding method by picosecond laser is presented in this paper. In this method, a picosecond laser performs firstly rapid oscillating scan local welding of the two natural overlap glasses with a large contact gap to form a closed area consisting of spot welds. The glass contact gap in the closed area can be reduced to about 1.5 μm through the solidification shrinkage effect of spot welds. Then a good seal weld without plasma ablation, micro-hole, and micro-crack defects can be achieved by picosecond laser in this closed area to realize seal welding of glasses with a large contact gap. The sealing test results show that the seal welding samples can keep good sealing performance for more than one week.

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are a promising application industry, but its stability is not very ideal at present. The bottleneck of the PSCs industrialization is that perovskite material is very sensitive to humidity, and it is easy to produce hydrolysis and failure. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an effective encapsulation method to achieve a better long-term stability. Ultrashort pulse laser glass welding technology is one of the effective encapsulation methods, but it is still difficult to be used in engineering due to the harsh conditions of optical contact. To solve these problems, a sealing welding method of perovskite films based on ultrashort pulse laser under the natural stacking conditions was proposed, the effectiveness of the sealing weld was verified by experiments, which provides support for the engineering application of perovskite solar cells, and also provides a possible direction for the application of ultrashort pulse laser glass welding technology.

To minimize the impact of spectral interference on laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) quantitative analyses, an algorithm based on wavelet transform was developed for simultaneous correction of spectral interference and continuum background. The root-mean-square error of calibration (RMSEC) of the univariate regression model for the element of interest was applied to determine the wavelet function, decomposition level, and scaling factor α. When the interference-free analytical lines of the elements of interest cannot be directly obtained from the measured spectra, they can be extracted from the spectra with the developed method for quantitative analysis. This method was applied for LIBS analyses of chromium (Cr), silicon (Si), titanium (Ti), and manganese (Mn) with continuum backgrounds and spectral interference in low alloy steel samples. The root-mean-square errors of cross-validation (RMSECV) of elements Cr, Si, Ti, and Mn were 0.0295, 0.0140, 0.0183, and 0.0558 wt%, respectively. The results demonstrated that the developed algorithm contributed to accuracy improvement for LIBS quantitative analyses with the presence of spectral interference.

Cr12MoV has wide applications in the molds and dies industry. However, it is also a hard-to-machining material due to its high mechanical strength and hardness. Area ablation of Cr12MoV cold-work mold steel was carried out using a picosecond (ps) pulse Nd:YVO4 laser. The effects of laser fluence and wavelength on the ablation rate and machining quality were investigated with wavelengths of 1064 nm, 532 nm and 355 nm. The experimental results indicate a logarithmic increase of the ablation rate to a maximum value of ~41 nm/pulse with the increase of laser fluence using the wavelengths of 1064 nm and 355 nm. For the wavelength of 532 nm, an ablation rate of ~33 nm/pulse is achieved at low laser fluence of 8.28 J/cm2, then increases logarithmically into about 54 nm/pulse at 25.10 J/cm2, and then decreases steeply into almost zero as the laser fluence increases above 25.10 J/cm2. For the three laser wavelengths, different pore sizes were observed in the laser ablation region. The surface roughness increases exponentially with the increase of the laser fluence. The influence mechanisms of laser fluence and wavelength on the laser ablation rate and machining quality were systematically analyzed and discussed in this paper. Keywords: Ps-laser ablation, Cr12MoV, Ablation rate, Machining quality

International audience; Traditional metal interconnect technology faces several challenges when scaling down, such as electromigration and poisoning. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been introduced in an attempt to solve these problems while providing on par performance. However, unexpected issues, such as great difficulty in manufacturing perfectly aligned CNTs and the undesired current leakage caused by electron percolation, still exist. In this work, we present novel vertically aligned CNT (VACNT)-based nanocomposites utilizing hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) as intertube insulating/shielding layers that can be prepared in a scalable and controllable fashion. This composite material inherits the full advantages of the directional conductivity of VACNTs which are strongly enhanced by the intertube h-BN layer and demonstrate excellent electrical anisotropy. This composite material achieves conductivities of 1060.43 and 4.43 S m–1 along the directions parallel and perpendicular to the VACNTs, respectively, while the previously reported electrical conductivity of CNT–polymer and CNT–ceramic counterparts are well below 10–3 S m–1 isotropically. Because of its refractory ability, the h-BN layer can also protect the prepared nanocomposites from harsh oxidation and erosion, showing ultrahigh stability up to 1400 °C. These results reflect a giant step toward a simple, turnkey solution to an advanced CNT-based composite material for future electrical interconnect applications.

A dual laser beam separation technology (DLBS) for KDP crystal has been developed by skillfully combining femtosecond laser and continuous fiber laser. A clean crystal surface could be achieved by DLBS.

Laser shock processing (LSP) is a novel surface engineering technique that utilizes a nanosecond pulse laser to generate plasma-driven shock waves, which can induce high compressive residual stresses extending to a depth of more than 1 mm from the surface. It has been widely applied to metallic components in aircrafts to improve the fatigue resistance. However, the fundamental mechanisms underlying the effects of LSP on the different materials and their performance remain poorly understood. This manuscript reviews the novel research studies by our team to use experimental approaches to understand the microstructural evolution in metal and ceramic materials during the LSP process, and elucidate the mechanisms that enable LSP to improve mechanical and irradiation properties. In austenitic steels, we discovered that the LSP-induced microstructures could improve the resistance to irradiation damage. The mechanisms are related to the defect sinks generated by LSP such as dislocations and twin boundaries. Compared to metals, LSP has not been widely applied to ceramics and its mechanisms on ceramics are less understood. LSP of alumina ceramics can induce localized plastic deformation near the surface and along grain boundaries. As a result, the mechanical properties of ceramic materials such as fracture toughness can be improved.