Thermal stability of volume Bragg gratings in chloride photo-thermo-refractive glass after femtosecond laser bleaching

We demonstrate that the Joule heating of the volume Bragg grating recorded in chloride photo-thermo-refractive glass can be suppressed by bleaching the silver nanoparticles with intense ultrashort laser pulses. Measurement of the bleached grating angular selectivity showed that, at the signal wavelength at 972 nm, the spectral drift is 0.5 nm at the CW laser diode beam intensity as high as 145 W/cm(2). Thus, the bleaching of silver nanoparticles results in the improved thermal stability of transmission gratings, allowing one to employ them to control the powerful CW laser radiation. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America