Alex Filin

Direct growth of CdSe semiconductor quantum dots in glass matrix by femtosecond laser beam

Controllable, spatially inhomogeneous distributions of CdSe nanocrystals smaller than the exciton Bohr radius are grown in a glass matrix under combined action of sample heating (below the transformation temperature) and focused high-repetition femtosecond (fs) laser beam. Selective quantum dot precipitation is evidenced by position-dependent absorption and Raman spectra. The particle size is estimated as r=2.1±0.3 nm by comparing the measured absorption and Raman spectra with those obtained from the samples grown in glass by traditional heat-treatment procedure. Direct growth of CdSe quantum dots in glass is enabled by nonlinear excitation using a focused fs duration laser beam (as differentiated from other methods), and this opens an avenue for adjustable selective growth patterns.

Tunable broadband optical generation via giant Rabi shifting in micro-plasmas

Broadband, coherent radiation in the optical frequency range is generated using micro-plasma channels in atmospheric gases in a pump-probe experiment. A micro-plasma medium is created in a gas by a focused intense femtosecond pump pulse. A picosecond probe pulse then interacts with this micro-plasma channel, producing broad, coherent sidebands that are associated with luminescence lines and are red- and blue-shifted with respect to the laser carrier frequency. These sidebands originate from the induced Rabi oscillations between pairs of excited states that are coupled by the probe pulse. These excited states become populated in the process of plasma cooling. Thus, the sideband radiation intensity tracks the micro-plasma evolution. The sidebands incorporate Rabi shifts corresponding to varying value of the electric field magnitude in the probe pulse: this makes them broad and malleable to tuning. The intensity of the probe beam ~ 1010 W cm-2, creates a maximum sideband shift of > 90 meV from the carrier frequency, resulting in an effective bandwidth of 200 meV. The sidebands may be effectively controlled by the intensity and temporal profile of the probe pulse. The giant Rabi shift is both tunable and coherent over a wide range of frequencies and over a wide range of atomic transitions. The fact that the coherence is observed in a micro plasma demonstrates that Rabi cycling is possible at high temperature with moderately high laser intensities (1010 W cm-2) as long as transitions close to the driving frequency (▵ ~ 2% ωc) are available.