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An approach for the theoretical evaluation of the damage threshold in optical interference coatings that combine metal and dielectric films is presented. The model that is used combines a matrix formalism to describe the film system with the two temperatures model that describes the energy transfer and the temperatures of electrons and lattice in a solid submitted to a laser irradiation at the femtosecond time scale. With this approach the thermal consequences due to the ultrafast absorption of the metal film can be evaluated in the multilayer stack for single or multiple pulses. Some applications are presented for the case of broadband mirrors for ultrashort pulses with low dispersion. Particularly we study the impact of the metal film (metal element, thickness) and the design on the Laser Induced Damage Threshold in the sub picosecond regime.

Adaptive mass fabrication method based on laser-induced plasmonic local surface defunctionalization was suggested to realize solution-based high resolution self-patterning on transparent substrate in parallel. After non-patterned functional monolayer was locally deactivated by laser-induced metallic plasma species, various micro/nano metal structures could be simultaneously fabricated by the parallel self-selective deposition of metal nanoparticles on a specific region. This method makes the eco-friendly and cost-effective production of high resolution pattern possible. Moreover, it can respond to design change actively due to the broad controllable range and easy change of key patterning specifications such as a resolution (subwavelength~100 μm), thickness (100 nm~6 μm), type (dot and line), and shape.

Switchable metamaterials offer unique solutions for efficiently manipulating electromagnetic waves, particularly for terahertz waves, which has been difficult since naturally occurring materials rarely respond to terahertz frequencies controllably. However, few terahertz modulators demonstrated to date exhibit simultaneously low attenuation and high modulation depth. In this letter we propose a new class of electrically-tunable terahertz metamaterial modulators employing metallic frequency-selective-surfaces (FSS) in conjunction with capacitively-tunable layers of electrons, promising near 100% modulation depth and < 15% attenuation. The fundamental departure in our design from the prior art is tuning enabled by self-gated electron layers that is independent from the metallic FSS. Our proposal is applicable to all possible electrically tunable elements including graphene, Si, MoS(2), oxides etc, thus opening up myriad opportunities for realizing high performance switchable metamaterials over an ultra-wide terahertz frequency range.

Direct laser writing is widely used for fabrication of subsurface, three dimensional structures in transparent media. However, the accessible volume is limited by distortion of the focussed beam at the sample edge. We determine the aberrated focal intensity distribution for light focused close to the edge of the substrate. Aberrations are modelled by dividing the pupil into two regions, each corresponding to light passing through the top and side facets. Aberration correction is demonstrated experimentally using a liquid crystal spatial light modulator for femtosecond microfabrication in fused silica. This technique allows controlled subsurface fabrication right up to the edge of the substrate. This can benefit a wide range of applications using direct laser writing, including the manufacture of waveguides and photonic crystals.

One of the limits of conventional scanning multiphoton microfabrication is its low throughput due to point-by-point processing. In order to surpass this limit, a multiphoton microfabrication system based on spatiotemporal focusing and patterned excitation has been developed to quickly provide three-dimensional (3D) freeform polymer microstructures. 3D freeform polymer microstructures using Rose Bengal as the photoinitiator are created by sequentially stacking two-dimensional fabricating patterns. The size of each fabrication area can be larger than 300 × 170 μm2 (full width at half maximum). Compared to conventional scanning multiphoton excitation and fixed mask pattern generation, this approach offers freeform microstructures and a greater than three-order increase in fabrication speed. Furthermore, the system is capable of optically sectioning the fabricated microstructures for providing 3D inspection.

We investigate thermal emission from a metamaterial wire medium embedded in a dielectric host and highlight two different regimes for efficient emission, respectively characterized by broadband emission near the effective plasma frequency of the metamaterial, and by narrow-band resonant emission at the band-edge in the Bragg scattering regime. We discuss how to control the spectral position and relative strength of these two emission mechanisms by varying the geometrical parameters of the proposed metamaterial and its temperature., (© 2012 Optical Society of America)

We propose a set of postulates to describe the mechanical interaction between a plane-wave electromagnetic pulse and a dispersive, dissipative slab having a refractive index of arbitrary sign. The postulates include the Abraham electromagnetic momentum density, a generalized Lorentz force law, and a model for absorption-driven mass transfer from the pulse to the medium. These opto-mechanical mechanisms are incorporated into a one-dimensional finite-difference time-domain algorithm that solves Maxwell's equations and calculates the instantaneous force densities exerted by the pulse onto the slab, the momentum-per-unit-area of the pulse and slab, and the trajectories of the slab and system center-of-mass. We show that the postulates are consistent with conservation of global energy, momentum, and center-of-mass velocity at all times, even for cases in which the refractive index of the slab is negative or zero. Consistency between the set of postulates and well-established conservation laws reinforces the Abraham momentum density as the one true electromagnetic momentum density and enables, for the first time, identification of the correct form of the electromagnetic mass density distribution and development of an explicit model for mass transfer due to absorption, for the most general case of a ponderable medium that is both dispersive and dissipative., (© 2012 Optical Society of America)

Buried channel waveguides in Nd:LuVO<4 were fabricated by femtosecond laser writing with the double-line technique. The photoluminescence properties of the bulk materials were found to be well preserved within the waveguide core region. Continuous-wave laser oscillation at 1066.4 nm was observed from the waveguide under ~809 nm optical excitation, with the absorbed pump power at threshold and laser slope efficiency of 98 mW and 14%, respectively.

We present direct UV-written waveguides and Bragg gratings operating at 780 nm. By combining two gratings into a Fabry-Perot cavity we have devised and implemented a novel and practical method of measuring the group delay of Bragg gratings.

Bursts of femtosecond laser pulses with a repetition rate of f = 38.5MHz were created using a purpose-built optical resonator. Single Ti:Sapphire laser pulses, trapped inside a resonator and released into controllable burst profiles by computer generated trigger delays to a fast Pockels cell switch, drove filamentation-assisted laser machining of high aspect ratio holes deep into transparent glasses. The time dynamics of the hole formation and ablation plume physics on 2-ns to 400-ms time scales were examined in time-resolved side-view images recorded with an intensified-CCD camera during the laser machining process. Transient effects of photoluminescence and ablation plume emissions confirm the build-up of heat accumulation effects during the burst train, the formation of laser-generated filaments and plume-shielding effects inside the deeply etched vias. The small time interval between the pulses in the present burst train enabled a more gentle modification in the laser interaction volume that mitigated shock-induced microcracks compared with single pulses.

A path-folded infrared image spectrometer with five sub-gratings and five linear-array detectors was applied to a broadband optical monitoring (BOM) system for thin film deposition. Through in situ BOM, we can simultaneously acquire the thickness and refractive index of each layer in real time by fitting the measured spectra, and modify the deposition parameters during deposition process according to the fitting results. An effective data processing method was proposed and applied in the BOM process, and it shortened the data processing time and improved the monitoring efficiency greatly. For demonstration, a narrow band-pass filter (NBF) at 1540 nm with ~10 nm full width at half-maximum (FWHM) had been manufactured using the developed BOM system, and the results showed that this BOM method was satisfying for monitoring deposition of thin film devices.

50 fs - 12 ps laser pulses are employed to ablate aluminum, copper, iron, and graphite targets. The ablation-generated momentum is measured with a torsion pendulum. Corresponding time-resolved shadowgraphic measurements show that the ablation process at the optimal laser fluence achieving the maximal momentum is primarily dominated by the photomechanical mechanism. When laser pulses with specific laser fluence are used and the pulse duration is tuned from 50 fs to 12 ps, the generated momentum firstly increases and then remains almost constant, which could be attributed to the change of the ablation mechanism involved from atomization to phase explosion. The investigation of the ablation-generated momentum also reveals a nonlinear momentum-energy conversion scaling law, namely, as the pulse energy increases, the momentum obtained by the target increases nonlinearly. This may be caused by the effective reduction of the dissipated energy into the surrounding of the ablation zone as the pulse energy increases, which indicates that for femtosecond laser the dissipated energy into the surrounding target is still significant.

We study the optical force arising when isolated gold nanowire pairs and metamaterials with a gold nanowire pair in the unit cell are illuminated with laser radiation. Firstly, we show that isolated nanowire pairs are subject to much stronger optical forces than nanospheres due to their stronger electric and magnetic dipole resonances. We also investigate the properties of the optical force as a function of the length of the nanowires and of the distance between the nanowires. Secondly, we study the optical force in a metamaterial that consists of a periodic array of nanowire pairs. We show that the ratio of the size of the unit cell to the length of the nanowires determines whether the electric dipole resonance leads to an attractive or a repulsive force, and we present the underlying physical mechanism for this effect.

For the first time, in situ the hole shape evolution during ultrashort pulse laser drilling in semiconductor material is imaged. The trans-illumination of the sample at a wavelength of 1.06 µm is projected onto a standard CCD camera during the ablation, providing an image of the contour of the ablated structure perpendicular to the irradiation for drilling. This demonstrated technique enables a direct, high resolution investigation of the temporal evolution of the drilling process in the depth of the material without complex sample preparation or post processing.

The temperature dependence of the resonant wavelength of vertically coupled microring resonator can be controlled via internal stress caused by the thermo-optic and photo-elastic effects. In the case of strong internal stress, a polarization-independent microring resonator can be realized by controlling the device surface temperature using a heater module; the temperature dependence of TE and TM polarizations are different due to the internal stress and thus manipulating temperatures, the resonant wavelengths for TE and TM can be equalized at a specific temperature. In this study, the UV trimming of polarization-independent wavelength was demonstrated using UV-sensitive SiON as a core material. The temperature dependence of TE polarization was almost athermalized and that of TM was made negative by controlling internal stress. As a result, the simultaneous realization of the UV trimming and the polarization-independent microring was made possible more easily than before; the UV trimming can be done at room temperature due to the athermalized resonant wavelength for TE polarization.

Light transmission spectrum of a multilayer photonic crystal with a central liquid-crystal defect layer placed between crossed polarizers has been studied. Transmittance was varied due to the magnetically induced reorientation of the nematic director from homeotropic to planar alignment. Two notable effects were observed for this scheme: the spectral shift of defect modes corresponding to the extraordinary light wave and its superposition with the ordinary one. As a result, the optical cell allows controlling the intensity of interfering defect modes by applied magnetic field.

In order to more exactly predict femtosecond pulse laser induced damage threshold, an accurate theoretical model taking into account photoionization, avalanche ionization and decay of electrons is proposed by comparing respectively several combined ionization models with the published experimental measurements. In addition, the transmittance property and the near-field distribution of the 'moth eye' broadband antireflective microstructure directly patterned into the substrate material as a function of the surface structure period and groove depth are performed by a rigorous Fourier model method. It is found that the near-field distribution is strongly dependent on the periodicity of surface structure for TE polarization, but for TM wave it is insensitive to the period. What's more, the femtosecond pulse laser damage threshold of the surface microstructure on the pulse duration taking into account the local maximum electric field enhancement was calculated using the proposed relatively accurate theoretical ionization model. For the longer incident wavelength of 1064 nm, the weak linear damage threshold on the pulse duration is shown, but there is a surprising oscillation peak of breakdown threshold as a function of the pulse duration for the shorter incident wavelength of 532 nm.

Inverse lithography technology (ILT) treats photomask design for microlithography as an inverse mathematical problem. We show how the inverse lithography problem can be addressed as an obstacle reconstruction problem or an extended nonlinear image restoration problem, and then solved by a level set time-dependent model with finite difference schemes. We present explicit detailed formulation of the problem together with the first-order temporal and second-order spatial accurate discretization scheme. Experimental results show the superiority of the proposed level set-based ILT over the mainstream gradient methods.

We propose a scheme to induce transparency in one-dimensional disordered multilayers which are composed of negative permittivity and negative permeability metamaterials. First, analytical expressions for transparency condition are derived exactly, providing us a picture that complete tunneling in such kind of multiple-resonance system can be achieved if exponentially growing waves can compensate exponentially decaying waves. Second, a compensating method is used to realize this idea, and both simulations and experiments are performed in the microwave regime to confirm the theoretical analysis. Last, we have a discussion on how the coupling of resonances affects the transport properties of samples.

We report on an approach to ultraviolet (UV) photolithography and direct writing where both the exposure pattern and dose are determined by a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) controlled micro-pixellated light emitting diode array. The 370 nm UV light from a demonstrator 8 x 8 gallium nitride micro-pixel LED is projected onto photoresist covered substrates using two back-to-back microscope objectives, allowing controlled demagnification. In the present setup, the system is capable of delivering up to 8.8 W/cm2 per imaged pixel in circular spots of diameter approximately 8 microm. We show example structures written in positive as well as in negative photoresist.

We present a planar design of a metamaterial exhibiting electromagnetically induced transparency that is amenable to experimental verification in the microwave frequency band. The design is based on the coupling of a split-ring resonator with a cut-wire in the same plane. We investigate the sensitivity of the parameters of the transmission window on the coupling strength and on the circuit elements of the individual resonators, and we interpret the results in terms of two linearly coupled Lorentzian resonators. Our metamaterial designs combine low losses with the extremely small group velocity associated with the resonant response in the transmission window, rendering them suitable for slow light applications at room temperature.

The first measurements of thermally induced depolarization in a [110] oriented cubic crystal at powerful heat release were made. It was demonstrated that depolarization in a crystal with such orientation may be less than in analogous crystals having orientation [001] or [111]. In a TGG crystal, for example, maximum depolarization value was 10% and dropped down to 3% with a further increase of radiation power in full conformity with the theoretical predictions.

A femtosecond fiber laser was applied to fabricate broadband directional couplers inside bulk glass for general power splitting application in the 1250 to 1650-nm wavelength telecom spectrum. The broadband response was optimized over the 400-nm bandwidth by tailoring the coupling strength and the waveguide interaction length to balance the differing wavelength dependence of the straight interaction and bent transition regions. High spatial finesse of the femtosecond-laser writing technique enabled close placement (approxiamtely 6 microm) of adjacent waveguides that underpinned the wavelength-flattened broadband response at any coupling ratio in the 0% to 100% range. The spectral responses were well-represented by coupled mode theory, permitting simple design and implementation of broadband couplers for bulk 3D optical circuit integration.