Ultrafast charge dynamics in an amino acid induced by attosecond pulses

In the past few years, attosecond techniques have been implemented for the investigation of ultrafast dynamics in molecules. The generation of isolated attosecond pulses characterized by a relatively high photon flux has opened up new possibilities in the study of molecular dynamics. In this paper, we report on experimental and theoretical results of ultrafast charge dynamics in a biochemically relevant molecule, namely, the amino acid phenylalanine. The data represent the first experimental demonstration of the generation and observation of a charge migration process in a complexmolecule, where electron dynamics precede nuclear motion. The application of attosecond technology to the investigation of electron dynamics in biologically relevant molecules represents a multidisciplinary work, which can open new research frontiers: those in which few-femtosecond and even subfemtosecond electron processes determine the fate of biomolecules. It can also open new perspectives for the development of new technologies, for example, in molecular electronics, where electron processes on an ultrafast temporal scale are essential to trigger and control the electron current on the scale of the molecule.

利用块状介质进行飞秒强激光脉冲的腔外压缩

高强度飞秒激光脉冲的腔外压缩是获得高次谐波阿秒脉冲驱动源的必要手段。实验研究了超强超短飞秒激光脉冲在经过块状介质后的光谱展宽和色散补偿压缩现象。单脉冲能量0．26mJ，脉宽50fs的激光脉冲经透镜在空气中聚焦后再入射到块状材料上，出射脉冲光谱被展宽到接近40nm。由于在块状材料中的自聚焦效应，出射光束质量变好并保持较小的空间啁啾。利用熔融石英棱镜对补偿带有正色散的出射脉冲，最后得到〉0．1mJ，19fs的压缩脉冲。利用SPIDER装置测量了出射脉冲的脉宽和光谱相位。整个系统的能量效率大约为35％，压缩后的

飞秒激光微加工：激光精密加工领域的新前沿

飞秒激光微加工技术具有加工精度高、热效应小、损伤阈值低以及能够实现真正的三维微结构加工等优点,这些特性是传统的激光加工技术所无法取代的。首先回顾了激光微加工和超短脉冲激光技术的发展历史,然后介绍超短脉冲激光与金属和介质材料相互作用的机制,接着阐述了飞秒激光直写、干涉和投影制备等各种加工方法的原理,重点讨论飞秒激光在三维光子器件集成、微流体芯片制备及其在生化传感方面的应用等,最后展望了飞秒激光微加工领域所面临的机遇和挑战,指出了未来的研究方向。

超连续谱干涉方法测量古依相移

利用两束超连续光干涉得到的信号,测量了透镜焦点附近飞秒激光脉冲的古依(Gouy)相移。根据得到的光谱干涉信号,利用傅里叶变换得到相对相位值。激光光束在聚焦透镜后的束腰半径可以由成像方法测得。根据测量得到的激光光束束腰半径,用非线性拟合的方法得到了古依相移曲线,拟合曲线与实验结果符合得非常好。给出了古依相位在焦点前后1 mm区域内的移动量。

不同烧蚀条件下飞秒激光脉冲诱导ZnO纳米结构研究

烧蚀条件对飞秒激光脉冲诱导氧化锌纳米结构有重要影响。研究了800nm,150fs,250kHz的飞秒激光脉冲分别在空气中,去离子水中以及无水乙醇中垂直聚焦于氧化锌晶体表面,诱导形成不同形态的纳米结构。实验结果表明,在空气中利用飞秒激光脉冲辐照样品表面,形成了周期为180nm的纳米线;在去离子水中辐照诱导形成了由氧化锌纳米线聚集而成的"纳米球";在无水乙醇中形成出现分叉结构的纳米线。拉曼光谱分析辐照前后晶体晶相结果表明,形成的纳米结构相对于辐照前特征峰437cm-1强度有所下降,在570cm-1处的峰值则显著增强。分析了在各种烧蚀条件下诱导形成纳米结构的演化过程以及物理机理。

飞秒激光诱导波纹状微突起结构

利用飞秒激光振荡器产生的脉冲对镀有铬层的玻璃和石英基片进行微加工,发现两种样品表面均有波纹状的微突起结构产生。这些微突起结构离开样品表面的高度为10～300 nm不等,并且随着激光功率的增大而增加,在一定功率下达到饱和状态。它们的形貌、尺寸和高度取决于入射飞秒激光的能流以及飞秒脉冲的参数。通过化学方法证明了这些微突起结构是由玻璃和石英的主要成分SiO2组成的,并非样品表面的铬元素。此外,通过选取适当的飞秒激光功率和样品加工速度,制作了两种不同周期和线宽的光栅结构,显示出飞秒激光振荡器良好的加工性能。

飞秒激光诱导铬膜产生周期性微结构

通过纳焦量级的飞秒激光在铬膜表面诱导出了周期性微结构,并使用入射飞秒激光和激发的表面等离子体波之间的干涉理论模拟分析了飞秒激光作用下铬膜表面的温度场分布情况,定性地解释了铬膜表面周期性微结构产生的机理。实验和理论结果有助于对飞秒激光和铬膜相互作用机制的理解。

展宽器中非对称光谱剪切对输出脉冲对比度的影响

在展宽器中,光谱的剪切情况非常重要,它直接影响输出脉冲的质量。以ffner展宽器为例,参照以往建立的光线追迹模型,建立了分析展宽器中光谱剪切的模型。发现当展宽器的参数确定好后,光栅放置的位置对激光脉冲光谱剪切有非常重要的影响。当光栅相对于光轴中心对称放置时,展宽器容许通过的光谱相对于激光中心波长将是非对称分布的,即此时在展宽器中发生的光谱剪切为非对称光谱剪切,在神光II第9路拍瓦激光装置中,这种非对称光谱剪切将使输出脉冲对比度下降一个数量级。为了使展宽器中通过的光谱相对于激光中心波长对称分布,需要将光栅相对于光轴非中心对称放置。

光谱相位相干技术测量飞秒脉冲的倍频误差

从理论上推导了第Ⅱ类相位匹配下宽带飞秒脉冲的二次谐波光场,分析输入飞秒脉冲的非共线相位匹配方式、脉冲带宽引起相位失配与群速失配对测量的影响。结果表明,为了消除飞秒脉冲的带宽影响,需要对测量记录的光强乘以一个调制因子;测量相位误差与非共线相位匹配的夹角和晶体长度成正比;相位失配与群速失配产生相位测量误差,且第Ⅱ类相位匹配方式下脉冲附加相位值较大;强度和相位误差需要在脉冲重建结果中补偿。

Simple technique for generating trains of ultrashort pulses

A simple method for generating trains of high-contrast femtosecond pulses is proposed and demonstrated: a linearly polarized, frequency-chirped laser pulse is passed through a multiple-order wave plate and a linear polarizer. It is shown theoretically that this arrangement forms a train of laser pulses, and in experiments the production of a train of approximately 100 pulses, each of 200 fs duration, is demonstrated. In combination with an acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter this technique could be used to generate and control pulse trains with chirped spacing. Pulse trains of this type have widespread applications in ultrafast optics. (C) 2007 Optical Society of America.

Methods of generating carrier-envelope-phase stabilized, intense, few-cycle laser pulses

Ultrafast laser pulses have become an integral part of the toolbox of countless laboratories doing physics, chemistry, and biological research. The work presented here is motivated by a section in the ever-growing, interdisciplinary research towards understanding the fundamental workings of light-matter interactions. Specifically, attosecond pulses can be useful tools to obtain the desired insight. However access to, and the utility of, such pulses is dependent on the generation of intense, few-cycle, carrier-envelope-phase stabilized laser pulses. The presented work can be thought of as a sort of roadmap towards the latter. From the oscillator which provides the broadband seed to amplification methods, the integral pieces necessary for the generation of attosecond pulses are discussed. A range of topics from the fundamentals to design challenges is presented, outfitting the way towards the practical implementation of an intense few-cycle carrier-envelope-phase stabilized laser source.

Thermoelectric assessment of laser peening induced effects on a metallic biomedical Ti6Al4V

Laser peening has recently emerged as a useful technique to overcome detrimental effects associated to another well-known surface modification processes such as shot peening or grit blasting used in the biomedical field. It is worth to notice that besides the primary residual stress effect, thermally induced effects might also cause subtle surface and subsurface microstructural changes that might influence corrosion resistance. Moreover, since maximum loads use to occur at the surface, they could also play a critical role in the fatigue strength. In this work, plates of Ti-6Al-4V alloy of 7 mm in thickness were modified by laser peening without using a sacrificial outer layer. Irradiation by a Q-switched Nd-YAG laser (9.4 ns pulse length) working in fundamental harmonic at 2.8 J/pulse and with water as confining medium was used. Laser pulses with a 1.5 mm diameter at an equivalent overlapping density (EOD) of 5000 cm-2 were applied. Attempts to analyze the global induced effects after laser peening were addressed by using the contacting and non-contacting thermoelectric power (TEP) techniques. It was demonstrated that the thermoelectric method is entirely insensitive to surface topography while it is uniquely sensitive to subtle variations in thermoelectric properties, which are associated with the different material effects induced by different surface modification treatments. These results indicate that the stress-dependence of the thermoelectric power in metals produces sufficient contrast to detect and quantitatively characterize regions under compressive residual stress based on their thermoelectric power contrast with respect to the surrounding intact material. However, further research is needed to better separate residual stress effects from secondary material effects, especially in the case of low-conductivity engineering materials like titanium alloys.

Ultrafast photoinduced enhancement of nonlinear optical response in 15-atom gold clusters on indium tin oxide conducting film

We show that the third order optical nonlinearity of 15-atom gold clusters is significantly enhanced when in contact with indium tin oxide (ITO) conducting film. Open and close aperture z-scan experiments together with non-degenerate pump-probe differential transmission experiments were done using 80 fs laser pulses centered at 395 nm and 790 nm on gold clusters encased inside cyclodextrin cavities. We show that two photon absorption coefficient is enhanced by an order of magnitude as compared to that when the clusters are on pristine glass plate. The enhancement for the nonlinear optical refraction coefficient is similar to 3 times. The photo-induced excited state absorption using pump-probe experiments at pump wavelength of 395 nm and probe at 790 nm also show an enhancement by an order of magnitude. These results attributed to the excited state energy transfer in the coupled gold cluster-ITO system are different from the enhancement seen so far in charge donor-acceptor complexes and nanoparticle-conjugate polymer composites.

Low loss waveguide on chalcogenide glass using ultrafast laser at low repetition rate

In this work, we synthesized bulk amorphous GeGaS glass by conventional melt quenching technique. Amorphous nature of the glass is confirmed using X-ray diffraction. We fabricated the channel waveguides on this glass using the ultrafast laser inscription technique. The waveguides are written on this glass 100 mu m below the surface of the glass with a separation of 50 ae m by focusing the laser beam into the material using 0.67 NA lens. The laser parameters are set to 350 fs pulse duration at 100 KHz repetition rate. A range of writing energies with translation speeds 1 mm/s, 2 mm/s, 3 mm/s and 4 mm/s were investigated. After fabrication the waveguides facets were ground and polished to the optical quality to remove any tapering of the waveguide close to the edges. We characterized the loss measurement by butt coupling method and the mode field image of the waveguides has been captured to compare with the mode field image of fibers. Also we compared the asymmetry in the shape of the waveguide and its photo structural change using Raman spectra.