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Over the past years, many applications based on laser-induced refractive index changes in the volume of transparent materials have been demonstrated. Ultrashort pulse lasers offer the possibility to process bulky transparent materials in three dimensions, suggesting that direct laser writing will play a decisive role in the development of integrated micro-optics. At the present time, applications such as 3D long term data storage or embedded laser marking are already into the phase of industrial development. However, a quantitative estimate of the laser-induced refractive index change is still very challenging to obtain. On another hand, several microscopy techniques have been recently developed to characterize bulk refractive index changes in-situ. They have been mostly applied to biological purposes. Among those, spatial light interference microscopy (SLIM), offers a very good robustness with minimal post acquisition data processing. In this paper, we report on using SLIM to measure fs-laser induced refractive index changes in different common glassy materials, such as fused silica and borofloat glass (B33). The advantages of SLIM over classical phase-contrast microscopy are discussed.
In this work, glasses with systematically varied compositions were manufactured and irradiated by single Ti:sapphire fs-laserpulses (800 nm, 120 fs), focused at the surface and into the bulk of the glass materials. The samples were tested for their ablation threshold fluence as well as for structural changes using µ-Raman-spectroscopy. Correlations between the glass composition, the material-ablation on the glass surface and the permanent changes of the refractive index inside the glass volume after the irradiation by fs-laser pulses were obtained. The results show, that the structural modifications found at the surface of the glasses and inside its volume are closely related. However, while the ablation threshold fluence of the glass surface primarily depends on the glass dissociation energy, the permanent refractive index change inside the volume is rather determined by its ability for absorbing the fs-laser pulses and the subsequent relaxation processes. The results of this work provide some guidance on how the glass composition can be varied in order to optimize the fs-laser induced modification of dielectrics.
Ultrashort pulses lasers are tools of choice for functionalizing the bulk of transparent materials. In particular, direct photoinscription of simple photonic functions have been demonstrated. Those elementary functions rely on the local refractive index change induced when focusing an ultrashort pulse in the volume of a transparent material. The range of possibilities offered by direct photoinscription is still under investigation. To help understanding, optimizing and assessing the full potential of this method, we developed a time-resolved phase contrast microscopy setup. The imaginary part (absorption) and the real part of the laser-induced complex refractive index can be visualized in the irradiated region. The setup is based on a commercially available phase contrast microscope extended into a pump-probe scheme. The originality of our approach is that the illumination is performed by using a pulsed laser source (i.e. a probe beam). Speckle-related issues are solved by employing adequate sets of diffusers. This laser-microscopy technique has a spatial resolution of 650 nm, and the impulse response is about 300 fs. The laser-induced refractive index changes can be tracked up to milliseconds after the energy deposition. The excitation beam (the pump) is focused with a microscope objective (numerical aperture of 0.45) into the bulk of an a-SiO2 sample. The pump beam can be temporally shaped with a SLM-based pulse shaping unit. This additional degree of flexibility allows for observing different interaction regimes. For instance, bulk material processing with femtosecond and picosecond duration pulses will be studied.