Internal surface plasmon excitation as the root cause of laser-induced periodic plasma structure and self-organized nanograting formation in the volume of transparent dielectric

TL;DR

This study uses computer simulations to identify internal surface plasmon excitation as the fundamental cause of periodic plasma structures and nanograting formation in transparent dielectrics exposed to femtosecond laser pulses.

Contribution

It reveals a new physical mechanism involving surface plasmon excitation that explains the formation of ordered nanostructures during laser-induced breakdown in dielectrics.

Findings

Identification of internal surface plasmon as the root cause of nanograting formation.

Demonstration of the role of a thin overcritical plasma layer at the breakdown front.

Explanation of the periodicity of plasma structures matching surface plasmon wavelength.

Abstract

A computer simulation of dynamics of an optical discharge produced in the volume of a transparent dielectric (fused silica) by a focused femtosecond laser pulse was carried out taking into account the possibility of developing small-scale ionization-field instability. The presence of small foreign inclusions in the fused silica was taken into account with the model of a nanodispersed heterogeneous medium by using Maxwell Garnett formulas. The results of the calculations made it possible to reveal the previously unknown physical mechanism that determines the periodicity of the ordered plasma-field structure that is formed in each single breakdown pulse and is the root cause of the ordered volume nanograting formation in dielectric material exposed to a series of repeated pulse. Two main points are decisive in this mechanism: (i) the formation of a thin overcritical plasma layer at the breakdown wave front counter-propagated to the incident laser pulse and (ii) the excitation of the "internal surface plasmon" at this front, resulting in a rapid amplification of the corresponding spatial harmonic of random seed perturbations in the plasma and formation of a contrast structure with a period equal to the wavelength of the surface plasmon (0.7 of the wavelength in dielectric).