Tuning the structural properties of femtosecond-laser-induced nanogratings

Abstract

We present the results of our investigations on the formation process of nanogratings in fused silica and the influence of fabrication parameters, thereby identifying ways to systematically control the grating properties. Nanogratings, self-organized nanostructures with subwavelength periodicity, are formed in certain parameter ranges during femtosecond-laser processing of transparent materials, resulting in characteristic birefringent modifications. They provide the opportunity for the fabrication of arbitrary three-dimensional birefringent elements with position-dependent retardation. Based on our findings, we were able to fabricate birefringent elements with various precise retardations in otherwise isotropic fused silica

Nanogratings in fused silica: Formation, control, and applications

“…p=4 and hence allows a quick characterization of the induced birefringence. 20 Thus, the measured PCI is correlated to the formation of the nanogratings. 27,28 For a more general and reliable way to determine the retardation, we measured the angle-dependent transmission of the sample between crossed polarizers.…”

“…Nanogratings with highly homogeneous periodicity may serve as Bragg gratings. 24 A more immediate field is opened by harnessing their precisely tuneable birefringence 20 to realize intricate phase elements for polarization control. 25,26 In this article, we summarize the results of our investigations on nanogratings in fused silica.…”

Exciton mediated self-organization in glass driven by ultrashort light pulses

“…7,8 Despite several attempts to explain the peculiar self-organization process, the formation of these nanostructures still remains debatable. 5,9 The effect of nanograting formation has already found numerous applications for polarization control devices [10][11][12] and microfluidics. 13 More recently, the subwavelength nanostructures were also proposed for rewritable polarization multiplexed optical memory, 14 where the information encoding would be realized by means of two birefringence parameters, i.e.…”

Periodic and uniform nanogratings formed on cemented carbide by femtosecond laser scanning

“…However, laser pulse number, laser pulse energy, and laser scanning speed have been found to significantly influence the period of LIPSSs very recently [13][14][15][16]. Richter et al [13] investigated the formation of self-organized nanostructures inside the bulk of fused silica induced by ultrafast laser pulses at high repetition rates.…”