Localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPR) in TiO nanorod and nanotube arrays decorated by gold nanoparticles can be exploited to improve photocatalytic activity, enhance nonlinear optical coefficients, and increase light harvesting in solar cells. However, the LSPR typically has a low quality factor, and the resonance is often obscured by the Urbach tail of the TiO band gap absorption. Attempts to increase the LSPR extinction intensity by increasing the density of gold nanoparticles on the surface of the TiO nanostructures invariably produce peak broadening due to the effects of either agglomeration or polydispersity. We present a new class of hybrid nanostructures containing gold nanoparticles (NPs) partially embedded in nanoporous/nanotubular TiO by performing the anodization of cosputtered Ti-Au thin films containing a relatively high ratio of Au:Ti. Our method of anodizing thin film stacks containing alternate layers of Ti and TiAu results in very distinctive LSPR peaks with quality factors as high as 6.9 and ensemble line widths as small as 0.33 eV even in the presence of an Urbach tail. Unusual features in the anodization of such films are observed and explained, including oscillatory current transients and the observation of coherent heterointerfaces between the Au NPs and anatase TiO. We further show that such a plasmonic NP-embedded nanotube structure dramatically outperforms a plasmonic NP-decorated anodic nanotube structure in terms of the extinction coefficient, and achieves a strongly enhanced two-photon fluorescence due to the high density of gold nanoparticles in the composite film and the plasmonic local field enhancement.

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Laser ablation of chromium with nanojoule energy UV femtosecond pulses under background pressure conditions between 0.3 Torr and 700 Torr is studied and the corresponding plasma plume images at different times after irradiation are measured. The ablation focal spot is less than or the order of a micron when 170 nJ of laser pulse energy is used. This low pulse energy leads to short lifetimes of the plasma of the order of tens of nanoseconds. The plume shape changes with ambient pressure due to the collision with background gas. An axially stretched plume changes to a more circular plume as the pressure increases. In addition, a separation of the ionic and atomic components is observed at lower pressure. These two components move at significantly different velocities as well. The plasma plume expands at almost constant velocity at very low pressure but exhibits significant deceleration at higher pressure reaching an asymptotic stopping distance. Plume images are also obtained near the ablation threshold pulse energy. The plume characteristics are compared to different models of plume expansion.

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