A new method for recording images in glasses

Imprinting phase/amplitude patterns in glasses with thermal poling

“…silver-ion-exchanged glass K8 by the 40-min poling followed by the 360-min heat treatment in H 2 atmosphere is presented in Ref. [13] and Fig. 4.…”

Principles of a new method of obtaining optical metamaterials

“…Since the hydrogen can penetrate only through the surface of the glass, the formation of silver nanoparticles in samples polarized by means of anode relief occurs most often in those regions where the anode-relief depth δ is maximal, which corresponds to the minimum thickness d min of the layer depleted in silver cations. Rusan and Tagantsev 15 and other investigators 19 demonstrated earlier that the heat treatment in a hydrogen atmosphere of silver-containing oxide glasses polarized by means of a relief anode makes it possible to obtain high-resolution amplitude optical structures, including regular structures of submicron resolution (less than 250 nm). A micrograph of a regular structure (an amplitude diffraction grating), shown in Ref.…”

“…The use of glasses that contain silver cations opened up the possibility of using poling to record amplitude optical structures, 13,15 i.e., structures with optical-density modulation. The recording of such structures is based on the fact that heat-treating silver-containing glasses in a hydrogen atmosphere that penetrates into the sample exclusively through its surface results in the reduction of the univalent silver cations in the surface layer of the glass, followed by the formation of nanoparticles of metallic silver.…”