  Surface nanostructures provide the possibility to create and tailor surface
functionalities mainly via controlling their topography along with other
chemical and physical material properties. One of the most appealing
technologies for surface functionalization via micro- and nanostructuring is
based on laser processing. This can be done either via direct contour-shaping
of the irradiated material using a tightly focused laser beam or in a
self-ordered way that allows employing larger laser beam diameters along with
areal scanning to create a variety of laser-induced periodic surface structures
(LIPSS). For the latter approach, particularly ultrashort pulsed lasers have
recently pushed the borders across long-lasting limitations regarding the
minimum achievable feature sizes and additionally boosted up the production
times. This chapter reviews the plethora of recently investigated applications
of LIPSS-for example, via imposing diffractive or plasmonic structural colors,
the management of liquids and surface wetting properties, biomedical and
bioinspired functionalities, beneficial effects in tribology for reducing
friction and wear, the manipulation of optical scattering and absorption in
photovoltaics, or the modification of magnetic or superconducting surface
properties in other energy applications. The footprint of the LIPSS-based
technology is explored in detail regarding the current state of
industrialization, including an analysis of the market and associated LIPSS
production costs.
