Recently, two remarkable phenomena have been reported: nonreciprocal photosensitivity manifesting itself as dependence of material modification on light propagation direction in non-centrosymmetric crystal and a quill writing effect revealing strong dependence of the material modification in glass on the orientation of writing direction relative to the direction of the pulse-front tilt. In these effects, dependence of the imprinted structures on polarization of the laser beam can be attributed to the intrinsic anisotropy of the experiment associated with the beam movement.

In November this year, Researchers at University of Southampton , Kyoto University and Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fines Mechanics (SIOM/China)demonstrate for the first time that modification of the transparent isotropic glass by intense ultrashort laser pulse can depend on the polarization azimuth of the laser beam.[OPTICS EXPRESS. / Vol. 19, No. 21 / 2011: 20664].They attribute this new phenomenon to the anisotropy of the light-matter interaction caused by space-time couplings in ultrashort light pulses, which opens an interesting opportunity in the control of photon flux interacting with a target submerged into condensed isotropic medium. They refer the phenomenon as ultrafast light blade, drawing an analogy between strong material modifications produced by ultrashort light pulses polarized along a tilted front and material cutting with sharp blade.