Holographic gratings implemented in a photopolymerizable glass: Application to femtosecond laser pulses shaping

Abstract

We present the capability of the holographic gratings implemented in photopolymerizable glasses to be applied in spatial and spectral manipulation of femtosecond laser pulses. For this purpose we used volume phase holographic gratings recorded by the interference of two monochromatic and coherent beams coming from a Nd-YAG continuous laser. We carried out experiments to determine the main features of the diffracted beams originated by the interaction of volume holographic phase grating structures with femtosecond pulses arising from the fundamental emission of an amplified Ti: sapphire laser system and its second harmonic. Meanwhile we have performed experiments to determine its damage threshold indicating that this material is an excellent candidate for intense-fields and ultrashort laser pulse applications.