Aberration-free ultra-thin flat lenses and axicons at telecom wavelengths based on plasmonic metasurfaces

The concept of optical phase discontinuities is applied to the design and demonstration of aberration-free planar lenses and axicons, comprising a phased array of ultrathin subwavelength spaced optical antennas. The lenses and axicons consist of radial distributions of V-shaped nanoantennas that generate respectively spherical wavefronts and non-diffracting Bessel beams at telecom wavelengths. Simulations are also presented to show that our aberration-free designs are applicable to high numerical aperture lenses such as flat microscope objectives

Ultrafast laser micro-nano structuring of transparent materials with high aspect ratio

Ultrafast lasers are ideal tools to process transparent materials because they spatially confine the deposition of laser energy within the material's bulk via nonlinear photoionization processes. Nonlinear propagation and filamentation were initially regarded as deleterious effects. But in the last decade, they turned out to be benefits to control energy deposition over long distances. These effects create very high aspect ratio structures which have found a number of important applications, particularly for glass separation with non-ablative techniques. This chapter reviews the developments of in-volume ultrafast laser processing of transparent materials. We discuss the basic physics of the processes, characterization means, filamentation of Gaussian and Bessel beams and provide an overview of present applications

High efficiency femtosecond source of entangled photons

The method allowing enhance the eficiency of entangled photon sources based on Type II spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) by means of mode inversion of one of the SPDC output beams is described. Overlap between the the entire signal in idler beams can be achieved using the mode inversion thus maximizing the SPDC photon pair yields. With this method, coincidence count rates as high as 60 kHz from a single 0.5 mm long bulk BBO crystal pumped by the second-harmonic radiation of a femtosecond Ti: Sapphire laser, were obtained

Microrheology at the liquid-crystal water boundary

We demonstrate the viscosity measurement using laser-trapped liquid crystal droplet. The viscosity determined experimentally depended on the diameter of the droplet and boundary conditions at the liquid crystal surface which was changed by adding surfactant

Laser-assisted microfabrication by using Gauss-Bessel pulses: the evidence of selfaction

Abstract not available

Formation of amorphous sapphire by a femtosecond laser pulse induced micro-explosion

We report on structural characterization of void-structures created by a micro-explosion at the locus of a tightly focused femtosecond laser pulse inside the crystalline phase of Al2O3 (R3c space group). The transmission electron microscopy (TEM), micro-X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, and Raman scattering revealed a presence of strongly structurally modified amorphous regions around the void-structures. We discuss issues of achieving the required resolution for structural characterization and assignment of newly formed phases of nano-crystallites by TEM, XRD, and Raman scattering from micro-volumes of modified materials enclosed inside the bulk of the host phase

Generation of multiple Bessel beams for a biophotonics workstation

We present a simple method using an axicon and spatial light modulator to create multiple parallel Bessel beams and precisely control their individual positions in three dimensions. This technique is tested as an alternative to classical holographic beam shaping commonly used now in optical tweezers. Various applications of precise control of multiple Bessel beams are demonstrated within a single microscope giving rise to new methods for three-dimensional positional control of trapped particles or active sorting of micro-objects as well as "focus- free" photoporation of living cells. Overall this concept is termed a 'biophotonics workstation' where users may readily trap, sort and porate material using Bessel light modes in a microscope. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America.</p