The relation between ablation threshold fluence upon femtosecond laser pulse irradiation and the average dissociation energy density of silicate based multicomponent glass is studied. A simple model based on multiphoton absorption quantifies the absorbed energy density at the ablation threshold fluence. This energy density is compared to a calculated energy density which is necessary to decompose the glass compound into its atomic constituents. The results confirm that this energy density is a crucial intrinsic material parameter for the description of the femtosecond laser ablation threshold fluence of dielectrics

Nonlinear optical properties such as the nonlinear refractive index and nonlinear absorption are characterized by z-scan measurements for a series of silicate glasses upon irradiation with laser pulses of 130 fs duration and 800 nm center wavelength. The stoichiometry of the silicate glasses is varied systematically to reveal the influence of the glass composition on the nonlinear optical properties. Additionally, the thermal properties such as glasstransformation temperature and thermal expansion coefficient are obtained from dilatometric measurements. It is found that the nonlinear refractive index is mainly related to the silica matrix. The nonlinear absorption is increased with the addition of networkforming ions

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The effects of femtosecond laser pulse irradiation on the glass structure of alkaline silicate glasses were investigated by x-ray absorption near edge structure spectroscopy using the beamline of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt at the electron synchrotron BESSY II in Berlin (Germany) by analyzing the magnesium K-edge absorption peak for different laser fluences. The application of fluences above the material modification threshold (2.1 J/cm 2) leads to a characteristic shift of ∼1.0 eV in the K-edge revealing a reduced (∼3) mean magnesium bond length to the ligated oxygen ions (Mg-O) along with a reduced average coordination number of the Mg ions

We investigate the coupling of ladder-type quarterphenyl to the photon modes of a dielectric ZrOx /SiOx microcavity at ultraviolet wavelengths. For a relatively long cavity (≈10 μm) with high-reflectivity mirrors (0.998), optically pumped laser action is demonstrated in the weak-coupling regime. We observe single-mode operation with a threshold of 0.4 mJ cm(-2) . Strong coupling is achieved by using a short λ/2 cavity. We find pronounced anti-crossing features of the molecular (0,0) and (0,1) vibronic transitions and the cavity mode in angle-dependent reflectivity measurements providing Rabi splittings of (90±10) meV. All these features occur spectrally resonant to the exciton transition of ZnO demonstrating the potential of ladder-type oligo(p-phenylene)s for the construction of inorganic/organic hybrid microcavities.

The mode dynamics of a random laser is investigated in experiment and theory. The laser consists of a ZnCdO/ZnO multiple quantum well with air-holes that provide the necessary feedback. Time-resolved measurements reveal multi-mode spectra with individually developing features but no variation from shot to shot. These findings are qualitatively reproduced with a model that exploits the specifics of a dilute system of weak scatterers and can be interpreted in terms of a lasing network. Introducing the phase-sensitive node coherence reveals new aspects of the self-organization of the laser field. Lasing is carried by connected links between a subset of scatterers, the fields on which are oscillating coherently in phase. In addition, perturbing feedback with possibly unfitting phases from frustrated other scatterers is suppressed by destructive superposition. We believe that our findings are representative at least for weakly scattering random lasers. A generalization to random laser with dense and strong scatterers seems to be possible when using a more complex scattering theory for this case.

We demonstrated the strong coupling regime in a hybrid inorganic-organic microcavity consisting of (Zn,Mg)O quantum wells and ladder-type oligo(p-phenylene) molecules embedded in a polymer matrix. A Fabry-Pérot cavity is formed by an epitaxially grown lower ZnMgO Bragg reflector and a dielectric mirror deposited atop of the organic layer. A clear anticrossing behavior of the polariton branches related to the Wannier-Mott and Frenkel excitons, and the cavity photon mode with a Rabi-splitting reaching 50 meV, is clearly identified by angular-dependent reflectivity measurements at low temperature. By tailoring the structural design, an equal mixing with weights of about 0.3 for all three resonances is achieved for the middle polariton branch at an incidence angle of about 35°.

Optical facet preparation of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguides was done by polishing after saw dicing or cleaving after two different techniques of scoring by a mechanical saw and fs-laser. Cleaving after fs-laser scoring leads to smooth facet surface of air covered SOI waveguides; polishing after dicing is more efficient with SiO2covered waveguides. The prepared end facets were investigated using an atomic force microscope (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The SOI waveguides were characterized by optical transmission of telecommunication wavelength (1.5 μm).