Susanta Kumar Das

Enhancement of stability and efficiency of a nonlinear mirror mode-locked Nd:YVO(4) oscillator by an active Q-switch.

The stability and the peak power of a nonlinear-mirror mode-locked Nd:YVO(4) laser are significantly increased by the insertion of an acousto-optic modulator inside the laser cavity. The repetition rate for reliable operation can be varied in the range 35 kHz - 50 kHz. The laser generates the most intense and stable mode-locked pulses of width 9 ps lying underneath a Q-switched envelope of width 110 ns with a Q-switch modulation frequency of 38 kHz. For 10 W of pump power, a 224 times enhancement of peak power over that of cw mode-locking is obtained under reliable Q-switched and mode-locked operation.

Efficient second harmonic generation in ZnO nanorod arrays with broadband ultrashort pulses

Broadband frequency-doubling properties of c-axis oriented zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorod arrays grown by low-temperature chemical bath method on glass substrate were studied. The maximum effective nonlinearity was found to be about 7.5 times higher than that of a type-I beta-barium borate crystal for a pump intensity of 5.5×1010 W/cm2. The angular dependence of second harmonic generation (SHG) was determined experimentally. The measured spectral profile of SHG was found to be in good agreement with theoretical simulations.

Extended-area nanostructuring of TiO2 with femtosecond laser pulses at 400 nm using a line focus.

An efficient way to generate nanoscale laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) in rutile-type TiO(2) with frequency-converted femtosecond laser pulses at wavelengths around 400 nm is reported. Extended-area structuring on fixed and moving substrates was obtained by exploiting the line focus of a cylindrical lens. Under defined conditions with respect to pulse number, pulse energy and scanning velocity, two types of ripple-like LIPSS with high and low spatial frequencies (HSFL, LSFL) with periods in the range of 90 nm and 340 nm, respectively, were formed. In particular, lower numbers of high energetic pulses favour the generation of LSFL whereas higher numbers of lower energetic pulses enable the preferential creation of HSFL. Theoretical calculations on the basis of the Drude model support the assumption that refractive index changes by photo-excited carriers are a major mechanism responsible for LSFL. Furthermore, the appearance of random substructures as small as 30 nm superimposing low spatial frequency ripples is demonstrated and their possible origin is discussed.

Femtosecond-laser-induced quasiperiodic nanostructures on TiO2 surfaces

High-spatial frequency, quasiperiodic structures (HSFL, Nanoripples) of 170 nm feature size were induced in rutile-type titanium dioxide surfaces by focused 150 fs Ti:sapphire laser pulses at wavelengths around 800 nm. The ripple formation is distinctly visible for numbers of pulses of N=100–1000. At lower number of pulses (N=10), a significant surface roughening appears instead of ripples which is characterized by randomly meandering nanostructures. These observations confirm an essential contribution of early stage irregular material modifications to the dynamics of quasiperiodic ripple formation. The threshold fluence for ripple generation is estimated on the basis of the conventional theory of laser-induced surface structuring. The decrease in the threshold fluence from 0.34 to 0.24 J/cm2, as it was found for an increase in the number of pulses from N=100 to N=1000, is attributed to a damage accumulation effect. Nanostructuring of spatially extended regions was enabled by utilizing a controlled sample...

Multiphoton excitation of surface plasmon-polaritons and scaling of nanoripple formation in large bandgap materials

We report studies of multiphoton mechanisms of plasmon excitation and their influence on the femtosecond-laser induced sub-wavelength ripple generation in large-bandgap dielectric and semiconducting transparent materials. An extended Drude-Sipe formalism is applied to quantitatively estimate the real part of the dielectric function which is dependent on the carrier density. The theory is able to predict the ripple periods for selected materials in good agreement with the experimental observations. Possible limitations at very small spatial periods are also discussed.

Highly efficient THG in TiO 2 nanolayers for third-order pulse characterization

Third harmonic generation (THG) of femtosecond laser pulses in sputtered nanocrystalline TiO2 thin films is investigated. Using layers of graded thickness, the dependence of THG on the film parameters is studied. The maximum THG signal is observed at a thickness of 180 nm. The corresponding conversion efficiency is 26 times larger compared to THG at the air-glass interface. For a demonstration of the capabilities of such a highly nonlinear material for pulse characterization, third-order autocorrelation and interferometric frequency-resolved optical gating (IFROG) traces are recorded with unamplified nanojoule pulses directly from a broadband femtosecond laser oscillator.

Reconfigurable wavefront sensor for ultrashort pulses

A highly flexible Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor for ultrashort pulse diagnostics is presented. The temporal system performance is studied in detail. Reflective operation is enabled by programming tilt-tolerant microaxicons into a liquid-crystal-on-silicon spatial light modulator. Nearly undistorted pulse transfer is obtained by generating nondiffracting needle beams as subbeams. Reproducible wavefront analysis and spatially resolved second-order autocorrelation are demonstrated at incident angles up to 50° and pulse durations down to 6 fs.

Spectral and temporal response of liquid-crystal-on-silicon spatial light modulators

Spectral and temporal phase response of selected types of liquid-crystal-on-silicon spatial light modulators were studied using femtosecond pulses, determining specific transfer functions of the devices. The phase response resulting from programed gray level distributions was detected by analyzing the diffraction characteristics and by spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction. The results indicate the appearance of distinct parameter ranges that enable minimum spatiotemporal distortion. Weak oscillations in the spectral phase are explained by Gires–Tournois resonances [F. Gires and P. Tournois, Acad. Sci. Paris, C. R. 258, 6112 (1964)].

Multiphoton-absorption induced ultraviolet luminescence of ZnO nanorods using low-energy femtosecond pulses

Multiphoton-absorption (MPA) induced ultraviolet (UV) luminescence of ZnO nanorods grown by vapor phase transport was demonstrated using ultrafast excitation at pulse energies in the few nanojoules range, directly generated by a Ti:sapphire laser oscillator at wavelengths around 800 nm. The dependence of the UV luminescence on the excitation density reveals a two-photon absorption process as the responsible excitation mechanism. The broad spectral bandwidth of the excitation pulses obviously promotes the feasibility of the observed two-photon channel. Theoretical estimates concerning the contribution of nonlinear absorbance strongly support the experimental findings. The essential conditions for proper utilization of this process are discussed.

ZnO nanorods for efficient third harmonic UV generation

ZnO nanorods grown by both high temperature vapour phase transport and low temperature chemical bath deposition are very promising sources for UV third harmonic generation. Material grown by both methods show comparable efficiencies, in both cases an order of magnitude higher than surface third harmonic generation at the quartz-air interface of a bare quartz substrate. This result is in stark contrast to the linear optical properties of ZnO nanorods grown by these two methods, which show vastly different PL efficiencies. The third harmonic generated signal is analysed using intensity dependent measurements and interferometric frequency resolved optical gating, allowing extraction of the laser pulse parameters. The comparable levels of efficiency of ZnO grown by these very different methods as sources for third harmonic UV generation provides a broad suite of possible growth methods to suit various substrates, coverage and scalability requirements. Potential application areas range from interferometric frequency resolved optical gating characterization of few cycle fs pulses to single cell UV irradiation for biophysical studies.