This study is motivated by recent applications of short laser pulses to the manipulation of structures at the atomic scale and is based on the Density Functional Theory. The structures considered are linear monatomic chains formed by covalent and metallic atoms (i.e. Si, As and Al, Ag). The study is divided into two parts. The first part analyzes the structural and electronic properties of the chain ground states and the second part illustrates their evolution under laser irradiation. These calculations show the modification of the chain structure and illustrate the relationship between those changes, on one side, and the chain length and composition and the parameters of the laser light, on the other side.