Making Light Matter

1 Field and Challenges Lasers permeate our daily lives in many ways and specifically materials processing with lasers is key for numerous applications in science, technology, medicine, and industry. During the last years, different trends have been observed in the field of laser materials processing, i.e., 1) the pursuit of reaching extremely small scales and ultimate resolution in laser nanostructuring,[1] and 2) an up-scaling of the processing rates for meeting industrial demands.[2] Both trends are driven by the rapid advancements in ultrafast laser technologies in terms of throughput, complexity, and interoperability—currently manifesting in a Moore-law-like scaling of the average output powers with time—and, at the same time, benefiting from the newest developments in data-driven processes. Most applications of laser processing do manifest between these two extremes and are critically impacted by latest developments in material sciences. Europe plays a major role in each of these fields, as it successfully combines an excellent scientific environment with advanced technological capabilities and, thus, provided the ground for developing a successful industry in laser technologies. Long lasting scientific conferences, such as the Spring Meeting of the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS)[3] represent an important platform to exchange the most recent developments among those fields. 2 The Conference Symposium ... It is a guest editorial.