No abstract

Direct laser write of volume Bragg gratings with diffraction efficiency (absolute) ∼90% is demonstrated using Gauss-Bessel laser beams in fused silica glass. Axial multiplexing of ∼ 90 µm long segments of modified optical material was demonstrated and thick Bragg gratings of aspect ratio depth/period ≈234 were achieved with period d = 1.5 µm. Typical fabrication scanning speeds were up to 50 mm/s for gratings with cross sections up to five millimeters made within 1 h time. Potential applications of high efficiency Bragg gratings in a low nonlinearity medium such as silica are discussed.

We report single-pass cutting of strong transparent glass materials of 700 μm thickness with a speed up to 270 mm/s using single-shot nanostructuring technique exploiting picosecond, zero-order Bessel beams at laser wavelength of 1030 nm. Particularly, we present results of a systematic study of cutting of tempered glass which has high resistance to thermal and mechanical shocks due to the inhomogeneous material properties along its thickness, and homogeneous glass that identify a unique focusing geometry and a finite pitch dependency, for which cutting with high quality and high reproducibility can be achieved. These results represent a significant advancement in the field of high-speed cutting of technologically important transparent material

We report on a technique for precise hole drilling in optical fibers using tightly focused femtosecond laser pulses. This direct laser writing approach makes it possible to minimize the amount of waveguide material for uncompromised mechanical performance of the fiber. The proof-of-the-principle of the fiber integration into a microfluidic chip is demonstrated. We show that fabricated holes in the waveguides can be used for measurement of absorption coefficient and refractive index changes at 1×10 −3 refractive index units and 2 cm −1 for refractive index and absorption changes, respectively. Simple design and integration possibility of laser-fabricated waveguide sensors is prospective for optofluidic applications.