Abstract
The third-order optical nonlinearity, χ (3), is measured in transparent glasses (BK7 and fused silica) and crystals (BaF2 and quartz) using 36-fs, 800-nm laser pulses and the optical Kerr gate (OKE) technique; values are found to lie in the range 1.3–1.7×10-14 esu, in accordance with theoretical estimates. We probe the purely electronic response to the incident ultrashort laser pulse in fused silica and BK7 glass. In BaF2 and quartz, apart from the electronic response we also observe contribution from the nuclear response to the incident ultrashort pulses. We observe oscillatory modulations that persist for ∼400 fs. The response of the media (glasses and crystals) to ultrashort pulses is also measured using two-beam self-diffraction; the diffraction efficiency in the first-order grating is measured to be in the range of 0.06–0.13 %. Third harmonic generation due to self-phase matching in the transient grating geometry is measured as a function of temporal delay between the two incident ultrashort pulses, yielding the autocorrelation signal.
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Acknowledgements
This work constitutes part of the activities of I-CUP, the Indian Cluster for Ultrafast Photonics, which is supported by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India. We also acknowledge support from the Department of Science and Technology to JAD under the Women Scientists’ Scheme. P.K. Datta is thanked for valuable suggestions.
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Dota, K., Dharmadhikari, J.A., Mathur, D. et al. Third-order nonlinear optical response in transparent solids using ultrashort laser pulses. Appl. Phys. B 107, 703–709 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-012-4935-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-012-4935-7