Chiroptical properties photo-induced by femtosecond laser irradiation in silica glass

We confirm that the irradiation of silica glass (achiral material) with a linear polarized Gaussian beam (achiral light) from a femtosecond laser can create chiroptical properties such as UV-Vis circular dichroism. This last result is surprising because crystalline silica exhibits optical rotation but no circular dichroism in the UV-Vis range. In this paper we show that ellipticity can be as high as 1400mdeg at 400 nm, by controlling the laser irradiation configuration. In addition, we show that the non-reversible sample circular dichroism measurements are due to the fact that linear and circular optical properties do not have the same distribution in depth. Published by AIP Publishing.