Sub-surface damage in indium phosphide caused by micromachining of grooves with femtosecond and nanosecond laser pulses

Grooves laser-micromachined in InP using 130 fs and 8 ns pulses with fluences 2 and 0.7 J/cm² are investigated by cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy. At the fluence of 2 J/cm², irradiation with both femtosecond and nanosecond laser pulses yield substantial resolidified layers with a maximum thickness of 0.5 m. In contrast, at the fluence of 0.7 J/cm², irradiation with nanosecond pulses leads to a layer of similar thickness, while femtosecond irradiation produces laser induced periodic surface structures with minimal resolidified material. For both fluences, femtosecond pulses generate substantial densities of defects extending over a few microns in depth, while nanosecond laser irradiation leads to no observable damage beneath the resolidified layer. The high peak power density and the stress confinement obtained from femtosecond pulses, along with incubation effects, are identified as the major factors leading the observed plastic deformations. PACS 61.80.Ba; 68.35.Gy; 79.20.Ds     

Time-frequency characterization of high-order harmonic pulses

We present energy-resolved cross-correlation measurements of extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pulses generated as high harmonics of femtosecond pulses from a 1 kHz titanium-sapphire laser. The harmonic pulses are probed by a fraction of the fundamental laser pulse at 800 nm, in a noncollinear geometry, allowing us to vary independently the parameters of the harmonic pump and near-infrared probe pulses. We measure the so-called sidebands in the photoelectron spectrum of argon corresponding to the absorption of a harmonic photon plus or minus one probe photon. Spectrally resolving the cross-correlation signal allows us to characterize the time-dependent frequency of the XUV pulse.Received: 20 December 2002, Published online: 24 April 2003PACS: 42.65.Ky Harmonic generation, frequency conversion     

Narrow-band seeding of an optical parametric amplifier in the femtosecond regime

Nearly transform limited femtosecond pulses tunable between 2.56 and 3.16 m have been generated by optical parametric amplification. The single stage parametric amplifier is pumped by a tunable high power femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser system at 1 kHz repetition rate and seeded by quasi-continuous wave (cw) radiation from the Q-switched Nd:YLF laser used to pump the regenerative amplifier. The 100 fs idler pulses are shorter than the pump pulses. The mechanism of the achieved pulse compression is discussed and experimental results are compared with numerical simulations.     

Tunable sub-100 femtosecond dye-laser pulses generated with a nanosecond pulsed pumping

Subpicosecond pulses at a fixed wavelength produced with a low-Q cavity dye laser pumped by a single, nanosecond laser (Q-switched Nd:YAG) are converted into tunable high-power sub-100 femtosecond pulses by generation, spectral selection, amplification and compression of a supercontinuum. The tunable, chirped, high-energy pulses obtained are compressed with a prism pair. Energies up to 50 J in sub-100 fs pulses were obtained in the 540 to 650 nm range using 40 mJ of the Nd: YAG-laser pumping pulses at 532 nm. The whole sub-100 fs system including the low-Q dye laser uses only one Nd:YAG laser as a pump source.     

The coherent effect of chirped femtosecond laser pulses on the formation of ultracold molecules in a magneto-optical trap

We have investigated how the formation of ultracold molecules in a rubidium magneto-optical trap is affected by the application of positively-chirped femtosecond laser pulses. The application of femtosecond pulses resulted in a reduction, rather than an increase, in the rate of detection of ⁸⁵Rb₂ and ⁸⁷Rb₂ triplet ground-state molecules, and compared this to the effects of non-chirped pulses, continuous-wave light, and the formation rate when no additional light was applied. A dependence on the amount of chirp of the femtosecond laser pulses suggests that the reduction in the molecular signal is the result of a coherent effect, and provides a promising indication that coherent control could be used to engineer the production of ultracold molecules.     

Photo-induced creation of nitrogen-related color centers in diamond nanocrystals under femtosecond illumination

Diamond nanocrystals deposited on a dielectric mirror at the focus of a microscope objective have been illuminated by femtosecond laser pulses. We have observed the photo-creation of color centers, under peak power corresponding to an intensity of about . In a nanocrystal initially containing a single Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) center, femtosecond illumination resulted in the transformation of this center into another one with different spectral features. These features are tentatively attributed to the neutral form NV⁰. This irreversible transformation goes together with the photocreation of other unstable color centers at the laser focus. Such behavior under femtosecond laser illumination place some limitations on the use of sub-picosecond pulses to trigger single photon emission from a single NV center in diamond nanocrystal.     

Control of the refractive index change in fused silica glasses induced by a loosely focused femtosecond laser

We demonstrate waveguide fabrication using of a loosely focused femtosecond laser that induces both nonlinear ionization and nonlinear propagation in silica glasses without any scanning process. The numerical aperture is chosen to be 0.007 to avoid spatial splitting of the laser pulses during the nonlinear propagation of the femtosecond laser pulses inside the fused silica glass. It also enables a uniform cylindrical refractive index change, which acts as an optical waveguide, to be induced. We found that the induction of irregular refractive index changes is related to the free electron density of the focused area and is controlled by decreasing the NA. The length, position, and core diameter of the fabricated waveguide can be controlled by the pulse-width, energy, and irradiation time of the incident laser. By using this technique, we varied the length of the fabricated waveguides between 20 m and 6 mm, while keeping the core diameter at around 5 m. PACS 42.70.Ce; 42.82.Et; 61.80.Ba     

Femtosecond laser pulse ablation of GaAs and InP: studies utilizing scanning and transmission electron microscopy

Single pulse laser ablation of GaAs and InP using 130 fs light pulses at 800 nm was studied with various techniques, in particular, scanning and transmission electron microscopies. The final state of the material near the laser-ablated region following femtosecond ablation was characterized in detail for selected laser fluences. Threshold ablation laser fluences were also obtained for both compounds. PACS 61.80.Ba; 64.60.-i; 79.20.Ds     

New regime of inverse saturable absorption for self-stabilizing passively mode-locked lasers

The reflectivity of a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) is generally expected to increase with increasing pulse energy. However, for higher pulse energies the reflectivity can decrease again; we call this a roll-over of the nonlinear reflectivity curve caused by inverse saturable absorption. We show for several SESAMs that the measured roll-over is consistent with two-photon absorption only for short (femtosecond) pulses, while a stronger (yet unidentified) kind of nonlinear absorption is dominant for longer (picosecond) pulses. These inverse saturable absorption effects have important technological consequences, e.g. for the Q-switching dynamics of passively mode-locked lasers. A simple equation using only measurable SESAM parameters and including inverse saturable absorption is derived for the Q-switched mode-locking threshold. We present various data and discuss the sometimes detrimental effects of this roll-over for femtosecond high repetition rate lasers, as well as the potentially very useful consequences for passively mode-locked multi-GHz lasers. We also discuss strategies to enhance or reduce this induced absorption by using different SESAM designs or semiconductor materials. PACS 42.60.Fc; 42.70.Nq; 78.20.Ci     

Laser-diode-seeded single and double stage femtosecond optical parametric amplification in the mid-infrared

Tunable mid-infrared pulses are generated with a MgO:LiNbO₃-based traveling-wave optical parametric amplifier in single and double stage operation regime pumped by a 1-kHz Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier system. For the first time to our knowledge a pulsed laser diode is successfully used in the femtosecond regime as a compact seed source at the signal wavelength where the tunability of the generated idler pulses can be realized by tuning the seed wavelength. Almost transform limited mid-infrared pulses as short as 130 and 160 fs with pulse energies as high as 5 and 15 J are produced near 3.5 m by the single and double stage scheme, respectively. The pulse to pulse fluctuations in both cases do not exceed 2% which corresponds to the stability of the pump source.     

Generation of accurately synchronized pump source for optical parametric chirped pulse amplification

We demonstrate the generation of ultra-short pulses at 1064 nm by continuous-wave seeded non-collinear optical parametric amplification in a -barium borate crystal pumped by the second harmonics of a femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser. After two stages of seeded parametric amplifiers, the generated pulses at 1064 nm were accurately synchronized with the fundamental pump pulses, which could be used as seeding pulses for further amplification and then frequency doubling to produce an accurately synchronized pump source for optical parametric amplification of chirped pulses from the same Ti:sapphire laser. PACS 42.65.Re; 42.65.-k; 52.35.Mw     

Large near resonance third order nonlinearity in GaN

We have studied third order nonlinearities, including two-photon absorption coefficient and nonlinear refractive index n ₂, of GaN in below bandgap ultraviolet (UV) wavelength regime by using UV femtosecond pulses. Two-photon absorption was investigated by demonstrating femtosecond UV pulsewidth autocorrelation in a GaN thin film while femtosecond Z-scan measurements revealed information for both n ₂ and . The distribution of n ₂ versus wavelength was found to be consistent with a model described by the quadratic Stark effect, which is the dominant factor contributed to the nonlinear refractive index near the bandgap. Large on the order of 10 cm/GW and large negative n ₂ with a magnitude on the order of several 10^–12 cm²/W were obtained. The at near mid-gap infrared (IR) wavelength was also found to be on the order of several cm/GW by using two-photon-type autocorrelations in a GaN thin film. Taking advantage of the large two-photon absorption at mid-gap wavelengths, we have demonstrated excellent image quality on two-photon confocal microscopy, including two-photon-scanning-photoluminescence imaging and two-photon optical-beam-induced current microscopy, on a GaN Hall measurement sample and an InGaN green light emitting diode.     

Femtosecond mid-infrared spectroscopy of low-energy excitations in solids

Recent progress in the generation and spectroscopic application of femtosecond pulses in the wavelength range between 3 and 25 m has led to new insight into low-energy excitations of solids, in particular semiconductors, semiconductor nanostructures, and high-T_C superconductors. The ultrafast nonequilibrium dynamics of such excitations has been observed in real-time and the underlying microscopic interactions have been analyzed. This article gives a brief overview of this exciting field of ultrafast science with the main emphasis on pulse generation and applications in semiconductor research where femtosecond intersubband Rabi flopping in quantum wells and quantum coherent electron transport in quantum cascade devices have been observed. PACS 78.67.De; 73.21.Fg; 07.57.Hm; 42.65.Re     

Femtosecond laser ionization and fragmentation of molecules for environmental sensing

Recent studies have demonstrated that femtosecond laser pulses have high potential in application to environmental science. Because of the properties of ultrafast, broadband and high power, the propagation of femtosecond laser pulses in air can lead to the generation of a strong field of 10¹³–10¹⁴ W/cm² with a large distance range from meter to kilometers. The strong laser field induces ionization and fragmentation of molecules in the laser propagation path, resulting in characteristic fingerprint emissions. This paper mainly focuses on recent research advances in environmental sensing by using femtosecond laser pulses through strong‐field‐induced ionization and fragmentation of molecules. The fingerprint emissions of molecules in strong laser fields are discussed based on the understanding of strong‐field–molecule interactions in atmospheric as well as in vacuum environments. This is followed by a comprehensive review of several recently developed optical methods for coherent control of fingerprint emissions of molecules. Lastly, both current challenges and a future perspective of this dynamic field are discussed.

     

Entanglement degree measure and a criterion for sudden death as a phase transition in bipartite systems

We propose a method to compute the entanglement degree of bipartite systems having dimension 2 × 2 and demonstrate that the partial transposition of density matrix, the Peres criterion, arise as a consequence of our method. Differently from other existing measures of entanglement, the one presented here makes possible the derivation of a criterion to verify if an arbitrary bipartite entanglement will suffers sudden death (SD) based only on the initial-state parameters. Our method also makes possible to characterize the SD as a dynamical quantum phase transition, with order parameter , having a universal critical exponent −1/2.     

Femtosecond photon echo in a dye-doped polymer film and the possibility of coherent optical cooling

The signals of primary and stimulated femtosecond photon echoes are investigated in a dye-doped polymer film at room temperature. The homogeneous S ₀ → S ₁ spectral line width, which is due to the interaction between the impurity molecules and the quasi-local low-frequency modes, is estimated (≈5 × 10¹² Hz). Special attention is paid to the study of spectra of femtosecond echo signals. The short-wave shifts of these spectra, with respect to the spectrum of femtosecond exciting pulses, are observed. These shifts indicate that the anti-Stokes regime of femtosecond pulse emission is realized. Therefore, the coherent regime of laser cooling of solids appears to be possible. The prospects of using of this new cooling regime in the function of a solid-state optical refrigerator are discussed.     

Morphology and composition on Al surface irradiated by femtosecond laser pulses

We study the surface chemicals and structures of aluminum plates irradiated by scanning femtosecond laser pulses in air for a wide range of laser fluence from 0.38 to 33.6 J/cm². X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction analyses indicate clearly that crystalline anorthic Al(OH)₃ is formed under femtosecond laser pulse irradiation. Besides aluminum hydroxide, crystalline Al₂O₃ is also found in the samples irradiated at high laser fluence. Field emission scanning electron microscopy demonstrates that the surfaces of the samples irradiated with low laser fluence are colloidal-like and that nanoparticles with a few nanometers in size are embedded in glue-like substances. For high laser fluence irradiated samples, the surfaces are highly porous and covered by nanoparticles with uniform size of less than 20 nm.     

Enhanced ablation of silica by the superposition of femtosecond and nanosecond laser pulses

We investigate the ablation process in SiO₂ by the superposition of 180 fs laser pulse (_center=800 nm) with a 15 ns laser pulse (_center=532 nm). Compared to femtosecond laser pulses alone, we measured an increase of 270±30% in volume of the ejected material with only a total increase of 40% of lasers fluences. This increase of ablation is the result of thermal and incubation effects generated by the femtosecond laser pulse. PACS 78.20.Nv; 61.80.Ba     

Effective length of filaments measurement using backscattered fluorescence from nitrogen molecules

The effective length of self-induced long (100 meters) plasma filaments, generated by intense femtosecond near IR laser pulses in air, was measured remotely using a lidar technique. This technique is based on detecting the backscattered fluorescence signal from nitrogen molecules excited along the intense laser pulse propagation path. This opens up the possibility of measuring remotely long filaments extending over hundreds of meters in the atmosphere. PACS 42.65.Jx; 42.68.Ay; 42.68.Wt     

Atmospheric Gas Detection with Broadband Sources

We investigate a new experimental method for detecting molecules from the ultraviolet to the near infrared range using ultrashort laser pulses. Two types of sources are used: a white light continuum generated by 200khz Ti: Sapphire regenerative amplifier system, and a near-gaussian femtosecond pulse (100 fs) generated by an optical parametric amplifier and tunable from 0.45 to 2.4 m. Up to now, this technique has only been performed in the visible domain. Both broadband sources allow the detection of the oxygen and the water vapor bands. Moreover, a new extraction method has been implemented, which provides the molecules' concentration by using a nonlinear fit technique.