Sub-diffraction-limited fluorescent patterns by tightly focusing polarized femtosecond vortex beams in a silver-containing glass.

Eungjang Lee,Lionel Canioni,Thierry Cardinal,Seung-Han Park,Etienne Brasselet,Yannick Petit

doi:10.1364/oe.25.010565

Abstract

We report that the shape and size of fluorescent patterns can be controlled by the focused laser intensity distribution, which depends on irradiation conditions as well as on the spin and orbital angular momenta being carried by light, inducing the formation of silver cluster patterns in a silver-containing zinc phosphate glass. In particular, we demonstrate that sub-diffraction-limited inner structures of fluorescent patterns can be generated by direct laser writing (DLW) with tightly focused femtosecond laser vortex beams as Laguerre-Gauss modes (LG0l) with linear and left-handed circular polarizations. We believe this technique, further combined with dual-color DLW, can be useful and powerful for developing structured light enabled nanostructures.

Highlights

The properties and applications of optical vortex beams have been extensively investigated because of their potential to various applications, as e.g. optical tweezing or efficient laser ablation [1,2,3,4]
We report that the shape and size of fluorescent patterns can be controlled by the focused laser intensity distribution, which depends on irradiation conditions as well as on the spin and orbital angular momenta being carried by light, inducing the formation of silver cluster patterns in a silver-containing zinc phosphate glass
We demonstrate that sub-diffraction-limited inner structures of fluorescent patterns can be generated by direct laser writing (DLW) with tightly focused femtosecond laser vortex beams as Laguerre-Gauss modes ( LG0l ) with linear and left-handed circular polarizations

Summary

Introduction

The properties and applications of optical vortex beams have been extensively investigated because of their potential to various applications, as e.g. optical tweezing or efficient laser ablation [1,2,3,4]. A laser-induced response by multi-pulse irradiation is expected to be influenced by both intensity and polarization of the writing light [19,20,21], to date no distinguishable polarization dependence has been observed in the fluorescence patterns in such silver-containing glass samples. LaguerreGauss(LG)-like vortex beams have been shown to lead to original fluorescent patterns, such as nested double-ring cylinders [6]. Such patterns, produced with a linear polarization, were found to be independent of the sign of the topological charge of the incident vortex beam.

Methods

Results

Conclusion