Multidimensional data recording inside nanoporous high-silica glass by a femtosecond laser beam has been investigated. It is shown that three femtosecond laser pulses at pulse repetition rates up to 1 MHz are sufficient for recording 3 bits of information inside nanoporous glass, which is an order of magnitude lower than the number of pulses required for data writing in silica glass and provides a corresponding gain in the data writing speed. Multilayer data recording and reading were demonstrated providing the storage density corresponding to the capacity of 25 GB in the optical compact disc form factor. An outstanding thermal stability of the proposed optical data storage is confirmed by the 24 h long heat treatment at 700°C, which could not damage the recorded data.

A method is proposed for local crystallization of glasses under laser irradiation. This method makes it possible to nucleate and grow microcrystals with a size distribution similar to a monodisperse...

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Optical materials with a tunable localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) are of great interest for applications in photonics and optoelectronics. In the present study, we explored the potential of generating an LSPR band with an ultra-broad range of over 1000 nm in gold nanoparticles (NPs), precipitated through a thermal treatment in ZnO-Al₂O₃-SiO₂ glass. Using optical absorption spectroscopy, we demonstrated that the LSPR band’s position and shape can be finely controlled by varying the thermal treatment route. Comprehensive methods including Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy were used to study the glass structure, while computational approaches were used for the theoretical description of the absorption spectra. The obtained results allowed us to suggest a scenario responsible for an abnormal LSPR band broadening that includes a possible interparticle plasmonic coupling effect taking place during the liquid–liquid phase separation of the heat-treated glass. The formation of gold NPs with an ultra-broad LSPR band in glasses holds promise for sensitizing rare earth ion luminescence for new photonics devices.