Open AccessColor center production by femtosecond pulse laser irradiation in LiF crystals
Author(s) -
Lilia Coronato Courrol,
Ricardo Elgul Samad,
Laércio Gomez,
I.M. Ranieri,
S.L. Baldochi,
Anderson Zanardi de Freitas,
Nilson D. Vieira
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/opex.12.000288
Subject(s) - optics , femtosecond , laser , femtosecond pulse , irradiation , materials science , excitation , atomic physics , physics , nuclear physics , quantum mechanics
We report the production of color centers in LiF single crystals by ultrashort high intensity laser pulses (60fs, 10 GW). An intensity threshold for color centers creation of 2 TW/cm(2) was determined, which is slightly smaller than the continuum generation threshold. We could identify a large amount of F centers that gave rise to aggregates such as F(2), F(2) (+) and F(3) (+). The proposed mechanism of formation is based on multiphoton excitation that also produce short lived F(2) (+) centers. It is also shown that it is possible to write tracks in the LiF crystals with dimensional control.