Abstract

Laser induced new optical properties in the bulk of glasses is a promising tool for photonic applications, such as optical data storage technologies, integrated photonic circuits or microfluidics based on laser-induced chemical etching selectivity. The metal-doped glasses are good candidates for direct laser writing because of the metal clusterization, formation of cluster nanostructures (NSs) and nanoparticles under irradiation and/or thermal treatment leading to the emergence of new optical properties [1]. Here we focus on the specific case of silver-doped phosphate glass irradiated by a train of femtosecond laser pulses. Silver clusterization and charge separation processes are induced in the glass by the laser irradiation, leading to the formation of silver NS and of a static electric field. This static electric field is responsible for a local centrosymmetry breakdown and the appearance of an effective second order nonlinearity in the tailored glass.

© 2019 IEEE