Dual-color control and inhibition of direct laser writing in silver-containing phosphate glasses

Yannick Petit (1, 2) , Konstantin Mishchik (1) , Nadezda Varkentina (1) , Nicolas Marquestaut (1) , Arnaud Royon (1) , Inka Manek-Hönninger (1) , Thierry Cardinal (2) , Lionel Canioni (1)

1 CELIA - Centre d'Etudes Lasers Intenses et Applications
2 ICMCB - Institut de Chimie de la Matière Condensée de Bordeaux

We report on dual-color control of femtosecond direct laser writing (DLW) in a noncommercial silver-containing zinc phosphate glass, thanks to an additional illumination with a cw (continuous wave) UV laser, either after the femtosecond irradiation or simultaneously. By tuning the cw UV power, we demonstrate the tunable control and inhibition of the production efficiency of laser-induced fluorescent silver clusters, leading up to 100% inhibition for simultaneous co-illumination when the laser writing is performed close enough to the permanent structuring threshold. The role of the cw UV illumination is discussed in terms of inhibition of the silver cluster precursors or of dissolution of the laser-induced silver clusters. These results show the ability of laser writing inhibition in our photosensitive silver-containing phosphate glass, which is a necessary step to further develop super-resolution laser writing approaches, such as STED-like DLW, either of fluorescent silver clusters or of silver metallic nanoparticles with plasmonic properties.

Mots clés: OCIS Codes: (140.339) Laser materials processing; (260.6042) Singular optics; (190.4180) Multiphoton processes; 100.6640 Superresolution; 050.6624 Subwavelength structures; 050.6875 Three-dimensional fabrication

Domaines: Matériaux

Yannick Petit, Konstantin Mishchik, Nadezda Varkentina, Nicolas Marquestaut, Arnaud Royon, et al.. Dual-color control and inhibition of direct laser writing in silver-containing phosphate glasses. Optics Letters, 2015, 40 (17), pp.4134-4137. ⟨10.1364/OL.40.004134⟩. ⟨hal-01193278⟩