We report measurements of damage threshold and ablation depth for SiO2 and CaF2 irradiated under lasers at wavelengths of 800 and 400 nm for duration of 45-800 fs. These results can be well understood by using a developed avalanche model. The model includes the production of conduction band electrons (CBEs), laser energy deposition, and CBE diffusion. The evolution of microexplosion is investigated based on this model.

We investigate exciton ground states in Si and 3C-SiC quantum dots by using the effective mass theory, taking account of the conduction- and valence-band mass anisotropy as well as the small spin-orbit splitting energy. The degenerate hole and exciton states are partly split by the mass anisotropy. The anisotropy splitting energies in quantum dots are different dramatically from their bulk value due to quantum size effects. The assumed changeable spin-orbit splitting energy may change the ordering of the anisotropy-split energy levels. Taking account of the exchange interaction, the degeneracy of the exciton states is further lifted. Due to the anisotropy and exchange splitting, the 48-fold exciton ground state will be split into two 18-fold triplets and two 6-fold singlets. The lowest three states are optically forbidden for Si quantum dots, which leads to a Stokes shift of luminescence. The theroretical shift agrees well with the experimental data. Furthermore, the exciton band gap and binding energy as a function of dot radius are presented both for Si and for 3C-SiC quantum dots. The band gap of Si quantum dots agrees well with the recent photoluminescence results of size-separated quantum dots by Ledoux et al. and absorption data of Furukawa et al.

A new pump and probe experimental system was developed, the pump pulse duration of which is stretched and is much longer than that of the probe pulse. Using this system, time-resolved electronic excitation processes and damage mechanisms in CaF2 crystals were studied. The measured reflectivity of the probe pulse begins to increase at the peak of the pump pulse and increases rapidly in the latter half of the pump pulse, when the pump pulse duration is stretched to 580 fs. Our experimental results indicate that both multiphoton ionization and impact ionization play important roles in the generation of conduction band electrons, at least they do so when the pump pulse durations are equal to or longer than 580 fs.

A theoretical model is proposed to describe the microscopic processes involved in the ablation in fused silica induced by femtosecond-laser pulse. Conduction-band electron (CBE) can absorb laser energy, the rate is calculated by quantum mechanical method and classical method. CBE is produced via photoionization (PI) and impact ionization (II). The PI and II rates are calculated by using the Keldysh theory and double-flux model, respectively. Besides the CBE production, we investigate laser energy deposition and its distribution. The equation of energy diffusion in physical space is resolved numerically. Taking energy density Edep=54 kJ/cm3 as the criterion, we calculate damage threshold, ablation depth, and ablation volumes. It is found that if energy diffusion is considered, energy density near sample surface is reduced to 1/10, damage threshold is enhanced more than 30%, ablation depth is increased by a factor of 10. Our theoretical results agree well with experimental measurements. Several ultrafast phenomena in fused silica are also discussed.

Incoherent subharmonic light scattering in isotropic media is a new kind of nonlinear light scattering, which involves single input photon and multiple output photons of equal frequency. We investigate theoretically the dependence of the subharmonic scattering intensity on the hyperpolarizability of molecules and the incident intensity using nonlinear optics theory similar to that used for Hyper-Rayleigh scattering and degenerate optical parametric oscillators. It is derived that the subharmonic scattering intensities grow exponentially or superexponentially with the hyperpolarizability of molecules and the incident intensity.