Infrared laser-induced piezo-optics in Sb₂Se_3−xTe_x–BaCl₂–PbCl₂ glass

Abstract

IR-induced elasto(piezo)-optical (PO) triggering effects in complex chalcogenide glasses with general formula Sb₂Se_{3- x} Te _x −BaCl₂–PbCl₂ (with x = 0.2, 0.8, 1.3) were found under the influence of a pulsed 190 ns CO₂ laser with wavelength 10.6 μm. It was shown that increasing x leads to an increase of the PO efficiency. This is caused by appearance of enhanced excited dipole moments due to variations of polarizability. Simultaneously variations of the PO versus pump–probe delay times in the nanosecond time range were explored. A substantial role of the electron–phonon subsystem in the observed IR-induced PO triggering is demonstrated. The investigations were done both for diagonal as well as off-diagonal PO tensor components.

Keywords:

• optoelectronic crystals
• elasto-optics
• chalcogenide glass