Femtosecond laser-induced nanostructure including nonlinear crystals inside silica-based glass

Summary form only given. Self-organized nanostructures including nonlinear crystals (i.e. LiNbOs) are obtained inside lithium niobium silicate glass via femtosecond (fs) laser irradiation (1030 nm, 300 fs) in a single-step processing.As shown in Fig. 1, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) are used to characterize the specificities of such nanostructures. It was found that nanostructure including LiNbO3 can be obtained in Zone D (i.e. the centre of laser-modified area in Fig.1a). As illustrated in Fig. 1b-e, two types of organizations are pointed out: one is along the laser propagation direction (i.e. Z direction) and the other one is along laser polarization direction (i.e. Y direction). Moreover, at certain laser pulse energy, textured nano-crystals are obtained embedded in lamella-like amorphous phases, investigated by transmission electron microscopy and EBSD [1-3].