Synthesis and properties of silicon dioxide films prepared by pulsed laser deposition using ceramic SiO2 target

Silicon dioxide (SiO₂) thin films were deposited on BK7 substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method using ceramic SiO₂ targets (C-SiO₂-Ts), which was sintered by solid state sintering. The reason for using C-SiO₂-T instead of the silicon target is to reduce the oxygen-deficiency phenomenon in deposited SiO₂ thin films. The influence of substrate-temperatures, oxygen-pressures and oxygen-plasma-assistance on the properties of synthesized films was studied. X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, ultraviolet–visible–near-infrared scanning spectrophotometry were used to characterize the crystallinity, morphology and optical properties of deposited films. Results show that the root-mean-square roughness of films increased with the increase of oxygen-pressure, substrate-temperature and with the employment of oxygen-plasma. The transmittance of films increased with the increase of oxygen-pressure and decreased with the increase of substrate-temperature and with the employment of oxygen-plasma. Stoichiometric SiO₂ thin film with high optical quality was synthesized at room-temperature and 20 Pa oxygen-pressure using C-SiO₂-T.     

典型光学观瞄窗口的“猫眼”效应特性评价与分析

各种光学观瞄窗口由于其自身结构和参数的不同,导致它们对入射光按原路返回的能力存在差异。为了客观评价此特性,提出了一种衡量光学观瞄窗口"猫眼"效应强弱的指标—RC,给出了数学模型并分析其主要影响因素。对几类典型光学观瞄窗口的"猫眼"效应指标RC进行了定量分析。结果表明:"猫眼"效应指标RC随光源波长的减小、镜头口径D的增大而增大,随反射元件反射系数ρS和光学系统穿越系数τS的增大而增大。     

Ultrafast nonlinear absorption and reflection of ZnS/ZnSe periodic nanostructures

ZnS/ZnSe heterostructures under condition of ZnSe interband excitation by a 150 fs laser pulse exhibit strong narrow-band modification of absorption and wide-band modification of reflection. Mean decay time for nonlinear reflection in heterostructures ranges from 2 to 3 ps whereas in bare ZnSe monolayer it exceeds 5 ps. Possible physical processes responsible for nonlinear refraction in the transparency region include interplay of absorption driven nonlinear refraction via Kramers–Kronig relations and intrinsic dielectric properties of dense electron–hole plasma. For nonlinear absorption at ZnSe band edge, interplay of plasma screening effects and states filling effects are relevant.     

Orthogonal-Polarization Diode Ring Laser and Its Gain Modulation

A diode ring cavity incorporating Faraday rotators and a variable phase retarder has been constructed aiming at achieving dual-frequency lasing operation with orthogonal linear polarizations. The orthogonal-polarization oscillations were observed in the 0.8-μm region with various operation wavelengths by changing the applied retardation. Furthermore the output power definitely depended on the applied retardation. Its dependence was theoretically studied, and the gain analysis taking into consideration the reflection at the laser diode amplifier facets was in good accordance with the experimental results.     

A compact 1.06/1.32/2.94 μm pulsed laser for dentistry

A three-wavelength pulsed laser for dental application is developed. The laser houses the Nd:YAG resonator (1.06/1.32 μm) for soft-tissue treatment and Er:YAG resonator (2.94 μm) for caries removal and fits and fissure treatment. Two heads share the cooling unit and two identical high-voltage power supply modules in order to achieve compactness. The Nd:YAG laser has 10 W at 1.06 μm and 7 W at 1.32 μm with a pulse duration of 100 μs. An Er:YAG laser of 2.94 μm has 3.5 W, 20 Hz and a pulse duration of 250 μs. The beams are delivered through fibers and the laser size is 75×55×32.5 cm.     

Lasing characteristics of Rhodamine B and Rhodamine 6G as a sensitizer in sol–gel silica

We report lasing characteristics of Rhodamine B (Rh. B) in sol–gel silica under excitation with frequency-doubled Nd:YAG laser and sensitization with Rhodamine 6G (Rh. 6G). The principle of radiative energy transfer (from Rh. 6G to Rh. B) has been utilized as a longitudinally Rh. 6G laser (at 585 nm)-pumped Rh. B laser process in the same sample. Rh. B offers a high photostable and efficient laser dye in sol–gel silica sensitized with Rh. 6G; 75,000 shots as a laser half-lifetime of the sample and 24% efficiency at pumping intensity 0.1 J/cm² of 532 nm. Wavelength shift occurs from 606 to 630 nm in the Rh. B laser with increasing its concentration from 1×10⁻⁴ to 8×10⁻⁴ M. The measured optical gain for Rh. B sensitized with Rh. 6G in sol–gel silica is higher than that in ethanol. A new effect has been observed; at 1×10⁻⁴ M of Rh. B and 0.5×10⁻⁴ M of Rh. 6G mixture, the emitted color of laser is changed by changing the pump intensity of frequency-doubled Nd:YAG laser.     

Role of localized excitons in the stimulated emission in ultra-thin CdSe/ZnSe/ZnSSe single quantum-well structures

Photo-pumped lasing properties have been investigated in a CdSe/ZnSe/ZnSSE single quantum wells (SQWs) with the well-layer thickness (L_W) of 1, 2 and 3 monolayer (ML). At 20 K, the laser threshold for the SQW withL_W = 1 ML was the lowest in spite of the smallest active layer thickness. The carrier (exciton) sheet density at the threshold (n)_thwas estimated to be as low as 7 × 10¹⁰cm⁻², which is well below Mott's screening density. Time-resolved photoluminescence has revealed that the localized biexciton band, whose peak energy agrees with the lasing peak, appeared on the low-energy side of the main PL peak at this level of carrier concentrations. Theoretical calculation has also shown that the localized biexciton recombination has to be taken into account for the lasing process. On the contrary, then_thvalues of the SQWs with 2 and 3 ML are 1 order of magnitude larger than that of the SQW with 1 ML. This may be due to the smaller oscillator strength of both localized excitons and localized biexcitons because of the larger inhomogeneous broadening, resulting in an increased carrier density for achieving optical gain sufficient to overcome the reflection losses.     

Measurements of Optical Trapping Efficiency for Micron-Sized Dielectric Particles in Various Surrounding Media

The maximum axial trapping efficiency Q_max has been measured in water, ethanol, butanol and octanol for polystyrene latex spheres having a diameter of 2–15μm. The effects of the diameter of the particle as well as the refractive index and the viscosity of surrounding medium have been investigated. For particles of d≥7 μm, Q_max is almost independent of particle size, while it decreases as the diameters decrease to d≦5 μm. It is also noted that Q_max is affected by the viscosity rather than the refractive index of the surrounding medium.     

Interference wedge properties relevant to laser applications: transmission and reflection of restricted light beams

The optical properties of the interference wedge are analysed for the case of restricted laser beam illumination. By further development of Brossel's method, equations describing this case are derived and used to calculate the reflected and transmitted beam profiles for typical intracavity laser beam diameters (0.2–0.6 mm) for Gaussian and uniform intensity distributions. In particular, the experimentally observed formation of bright fringes outside the beam impact area at resonant wavelengths is explained. some useful dependencies concerning the wedge reflection and transmission for laser applications are obtained and experimentally demonstrated.     

Anti-Stokes luminescence in heavily doped semiconductors as a mechanism of laser cooling

The anti-Stokes luminescence is a mechanism of the optical refrigeration in semiconductor light sources. The heavily doped semiconductors are considered as a material for the laser cooling. The limitation of this mechanism appears to be connected with a transition from the non-degenerate to degenerate occupation. This transition occurs at higher pumping rate (along with the transition to the optical gain and lasing) and at lower temperature. Thus, the limit for the laser cooling can be indicated. The minimal obtainable temperature is about 60–120 K depending on the doping level. The laser cooling of a semiconductor is impeded by the difficulty of extracting the spontaneous emission from a radiating body that is characterized by large angle of the total internal reflection.     

Investigation of the polyetherketone guest–host DR1/PEK-c polymer films by real-time monitoring of the second-harmonic generation

The real-time monitoring of the second-harmonic generation (SHG) was used to optimize the poling condition and to study the nonlinear optical (NLO) properties of the polyetherketone (PEK-c) guest–host polymer films. The high second-order NLO coefficient χ₃₃⁽²⁾=11.02 pm/v measured at 1.064 μm was achieved when the weight percent of DR1 guest in the polymer system is 20%. The NLO activity of the poled DR1/PEK-c polymer film can maintain more than 80% of its initial value when temperature is under 100°C, and the normalized second-order NLO coefficient can maintain more than 85% after 2400 s at 80°C.     

Quasi-simultaneous ultraviolet and infrared emission from a plasma cathode TEA laser

Quasi-simultaneous laser action in the UV (0.337 μm) and the IR (10.6 μm) was observed from a pulsed laser with a sliding discharge plasma cathode. The laser operates at atmospheric pressure, with a gas mixture of CO₂/N₂/He, at a 0.26/0.50/4.0 lmin⁻¹ flow rate. Output energies of 30 mJ in the IR and 0.35 mJ in the UV were obtained, from a laser discharge volume of 38.0×1.0×2.8 cm³. The optimum gas mixtures have been determined and the temporal behavior of the discharge parameters, the performance characteristics of the laser and the beam spatial distributions were investigated.     

Inspection of nano-sized SNOM-tips by optical far-field evaluation

High resolution optical microscopy has many interesting applications in solid state physics, low temperature physics, biology and semiconductor technology. Unfortunately, the lateral resolution of conventional microscopes is limited by the Rayleigh-limit. “Scanning nearfield optical microscopy” (SNOM) seems to be a promising new approach to characterize the properties of materials optically with a high lateral resolution of 50–100 nm. The most important part of such a microscope is the scanning probe (a special glass fiber tip). However, the quality of the optical fiber tip is of decisive importance. Since the production process of pulled and coated glass fiber tips is still highly empirical and error-prone, a technique would be useful to determine the tips’ quality before they are shipped to the user or mounted in the microscope. The tips’ apertures are smaller than λ/2 and therefore they cannot be measured in a non-destructive way by conventional optical microscopy. This paper discusses an easy and fast method for the optical characterization of common glass fiber SNOM tips. The effective aperture of the tip is measured from the far-field distribution of the emitted intensity recorded by a CCD target. A numerical model is introduced to solve this inverse task and a simple optical setup is presented to detect light emitted by the tip at an angle of up to 90° from the optical axis. Experimental investigation, near/far-field calculations and scanning electron microscope investigations show the working principle of this measurement technique for the analysis and evaluation of a typical nanostructured object.     

Effect of oxygen partial pressure on the structural and optical properties of dc reactive magnetron sputtered molybdenum oxide films

Molybdenum oxide films (MoO₃) were deposited on glass and crystalline silicon substrates by sputtering of molybdenum target under various oxygen partial pressures in the range 8 × 10⁻⁵–8 × 10⁻⁴ mbar and at a fixed substrate temperature of 473 K employing dc magnetron sputtering technique. The influence of oxygen partial pressure on the composition stoichiometry, chemical binding configuration, crystallographic structure and electrical and optical properties was systematically studied. X-ray photoelectron spectra of the films formed at 8 × 10⁻⁵ mbar showed the presence of Mo⁶⁺ and Mo⁵⁺ oxidation states of MoO₃ and MoO_3−x. The films deposited at oxygen partial pressure of 2 × 10⁻⁴ mbar showed Mo⁶⁺ oxidation state indicating the films were nearly stoichiometric. It was also confirmed by the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic studies. X-ray diffraction studies revealed that the films formed at oxygen partial pressure of 2 × 10⁻⁴ mbar showed the presence of (0 k 0) reflections indicated the layered structure of α-phase MoO₃. The electrical conductivity of the films decreased from 3.6 × 10⁻⁵ to 1.6 × 10⁻⁶ Ω⁻¹ cm⁻¹, the optical band gap of the films increased from 2.93 to 3.26 eV and the refractive index increased from 2.02 to 2.13 with the increase of oxygen partial pressure from 8 × 10⁻⁵ to 8 × 10⁻⁴ mbar, respectively.     

分划板失调时猫眼系统的反射特性

为降低光电装备猫眼效应,减小光学窗口被激光主动侦察系统探测到的概率,对分划板失调情况下猫眼系统的反射特性进行了研究。基于几何光学与2维平面波角谱衍射理论,推导并仿真了平面波通过分划板失调猫眼系统在出射面上的衍射光场分布特性,实验验证了猫眼目标的反射特性。研究结果表明:分划板失调会导致猫眼系统出射面的回波光斑发生椭圆形变,而斜入射探测激光会使这一现象更加明显。利用这一特性对猫眼系统进行改进,会大大增加激光主动侦察系统区分形变猫眼目标和漫反射背景干扰的难度。     

Spaceborne Laser Rangefinder “LORA” Used as a Cloud Lidar

First, in this report an overview is given on the use of the Russian laser altimeter in space “LORA” as a lidar for cloud measurements. Secondly, the influence of multiple scattering is verified by analysis of the backscatter signals from clouds having the excellent range resolution of a rangefinder.Presented at the 7th International Workshop on Multiple Scattering Lidar/Light Experiments (MUSCLE7), July 21–23 1994, Chiba, Japan.     

Compact eye-safe laser sources based on OPOs with KTP or PPKTP crystals

We report on compact eye-safe nanosecond laser sources emitting in the 1.5 μm wavelength range based on non-critically phase-matched parametric interaction in optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) with KTP and periodically poled KTP (PPKTP) crystals, pumped by the fundamental frequency of Nd:YAG lasers. As much as 250 μJ signal pulse energy at 1.5 μm wavelength, 6.5 ns FWHM pulse-width, has been obtained in a PPKTP-OPO, extracavity pumped by a Nd:YAG microlaser oscillator–amplifier at 650 μJ pump pulse energy, 8 ns pulse-width. A single signal pulse of 2.7-mJ output energy at 1.57 μm wavelength, less than 5 ns pulse-width, was generated in a KTP-OPO, intracavity pumped by a passively Q-switched Nd:YAG laser.     

ZnO films grown by laser ablation with and without oxygen CVD

In the present work we have studied the properties of zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films grown by laser ablation of ZnO targets under different substrate temperature and background oxygen conditions. The ZnO layers were deposited with a Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) system on pre-nitrided (0001) sapphire (Al₂O₃), using the base line of a Nd:YAG laser at 1064 nm. The films were characterized by different structural and optical methods, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), optical transmission spectroscopy, and steady-state photoluminescence (PL). XRD analysis with rocking curves and θ–2θ scans indicates preferential growth along the c-axis direction with a full width at half maximum (FWHM) smaller than 1.5. Low-temperature photoluminescence (PL) showed strong excitonic emission near 3.36 eV between 9 and 65 K.     

Oscillation wavelength of fiber Bragg grating semiconductor lasers

Based on the physical fact that a laser containing a gain medium with homogenous line broadening oscillates at the wavelength which requires the smallest threshold gain due to the mode competition effect, after taking into account the wavelength-depended reflectivity distribution profile of a fiber Bragg grating, the oscillation wavelength λ_l of fiber Bragg grating semiconductor lasers has been investigated theoretically. The results show that the laser oscillation wavelength λ_B is not fixed at the Bragg reflection wavelength λ_l of fiber Bragg grating, and the offset between λ_B and λ_l depends on the reflectivity distribution profile of fiber Bragg grating and the gain profile of semiconductor gain medium.     

Development of surface-textured hydrogenated ZnO:Al thin-films for μc-Si solar cells

This study addresses the optimization of rf magnetron-sputtered hydrogenated ZnO:Al (HAZO) films as front contacts in microcrystalline silicon solar cells. The front contact of a solar cell has to be highly conductive and highly transparent to visible and infrared radiation. Furthermore, it has to scatter the incident light efficiently in order for the light to be effectively trapped in the underlying silicon layers. In this research, HAZO films were rf-magnetron-sputtered on glass substrates from a ceramic (98 wt% ZnO, 2 wt% Al₂O₃) target. Various compositions of AZO films on glass substrates were prepared by changing the H₂/(Ar + H₂) ratio of the sputtering gas. The resulting smooth films exhibited high transparencies (T  85% for visible light including all reflection losses) and excellent electrical properties (ρ = 2.7 × 10⁻⁴ Ω · cm). Depending on their structural properties, these films developed different surface textures upon post-deposition etching using diluted hydrochloric acid. The light-scattering properties of these films could be controlled simply by varying the etching time. Moreover, the electrical properties of the films were not affected by the etching process. Therefore, within certain limits, it is possible to optimize the electro-optical and light-scattering properties separately. The microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H)-based p–i–n solar cells prepared using these new texture-etched AZO:H substrates showed high quantum efficiencies in the long wavelength range, thereby demonstrating effective light trapping. Using the optimum AZO:H thin-film textured surface, we achieved a p–i–n μc-Si solar cell efficiency of 7.78%.