Light scattering is a universal phenomenon that results from the interactions between light and particles or inhomogeneities in a medium. Far from being just a scientific curiosity, it supports a wide range of advanced technologies. Lord Rayleigh’s seminal explanation of the blue sky established the basic understanding of this process, which was later expanded by Nobel Prize-winning discoveries of Raman scattering and nonlinear scattering by Nicolaas Bloembergen (Nobel Prize winner in 1981). For over a century, breakthroughs in light scattering have continually expanded the limits of observation and measurement. Today, this spirit of discovery is driving critical advances in nanoscale science, enabling transformative applications, from label-free detection of single proteins, quantitative mass imaging of single biological macromolecules to optical trapping and tracking of individual nanoparticles. These groundbreaking studies all share a common goal: harnessing scattering to reveal the unseen at the nanoscale.
Yet a major frontier remains unexplored: while scattering is essential for nanoscale observation, it has also been the main obstacle to manufacturing. In laser processing, scattering disrupts as it causes wavefront distortions that prevent precise energy delivery, limiting kerf widths to the micrometer scale for decades. The very phenomenon that allows us to detect a single molecule has, paradoxically, also prevented us from machining with similar precision.
In a new paper published in Light: Science & Applications , a team of scientists, led by Professor Hongbo Sun from State Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement Technology and Instruments, Department of Precision Instrument, Tsinghua University, China, and co-workers have broken through this final barrier. Inspired by the interferometric scattering techniques that changed microscopy, they introduce interferometric scattering-based optical tomoslicing ( i -SOT) in this manuscript. In this work, they don’t suppress scattering; they control it. For the first time, they use coherent scattering interference not just to observe a sample, but to deliberately shape it.
First, i -SOT utilizes a deterministically created nanopore as the initial scatterer, which differs from imaging and sensing, where interferometric scattering comes from randomly distributed nano-scatterers such as nanoparticles, macromolecules, or local inhomogeneities within the focal volume.
Second, they expanded the use of point scatterers (nanopore) to line scatterers (nanoslit). Building on this concept, they developed a laser wire saw to accurately cut transparent solids into large-area, ultrathin crystalline wafers.
This shift in approach enables a previously impossible capability: lateral slicing of solids with kerf widths as narrow as 7 nm—a thousand times smaller than the diffraction limit. They demonstrate the creation of large-area, ultrathin crystalline wafers (such as YAG, MgAl₂O₄) with almost no material loss (below 1%), directly addressing the wasted material and low precision that have long been problems in semiconductor and photonics nanomanufacturing.
“Just as earlier work used scattering to unlock new insights into the nanoscale world, our work uses it to create within that world. We turn scattering from a passive information source into an active tool for shaping matter, establishing a new paradigm for optical manufacturing. ” the scientists forecast.
Light: Science & Applications
Interferometric scattering for optical tomoslicing of transparent solids