REU Student Project: 2010 U.S. Students at UCF Advisors: Martin
C. Richardson and Mark Ramme "Laser Induced Ag Nano-Clusters in
Glass" Ultrashort lasers pulses can be used to irradiate glass
causing the formation of Ag nanoparticles. When using these
laser pulses at highrepetition rates, the photo-reduced silver
atoms are able to form silver nanoparticles without additional
heat treatment due to heat accumulation effects within the focal
volume in the glass. It is believed that using a higher laser
repetition rate will then create a higher cluster density of the
Ag micro-clusters formed due to the increased local temperature
in the focal region. When optically pumped, these silver micro-
clusters are assumed to produce a second harmonic generation
(SHG) caused by a spatially uneven charge distribution. Back to
Student Projects