Glasses containing metallic nanoparticles exhibit very promising linear
and nonlinear optical properties, mainly due to the surface plasmon
resonances (SPRs) of the nanoparticles. The spectral position in the
visible and near-infrared range and polarization dependence of the SPR
are characteristically determined by the nanoparticles' shapes.
The focus of Ultra-Short Pulsed Laser Engineered Metal-Glass
Nanocomposites is the interaction of intense ultra-short laser pulses
with glass containing silver nanoparticles embedded in soda-lime glass,
and nanostructural modifications in metal-glass nanocomposites induced
by such laser pulses. In order to provide a comprehensive physical
picture of the processes leading to laser-induced persistent shape
transformation of the nanoparticles, series of experimental results
investigating the dependences of laser assisted shape modifications of
nanoparticles with laser pulse intensity, excitation wavelength,
temperature are considered. In addition, the resulting local optical
dichroism allows producing very flexibly polarizing optical (sub-)
microstructures with well-specified optical properties. The achieved
considerable progress towards technological application of this
technique, in particular also for long-term optical data storage, is
also discussed.