Abstract

Several standard silicate glasses have been shown to present large third order susceptibilities (χ⁽³⁾≃10⁻¹⁴ esu)¹. We report here kinetics of induced anisotropies resolved on a femtosecond time scale. For all the studied glasses, we find responses always limited by the pulsewidth which implies that the processes involved are of electronic origin. A correlation is verified between the nonlinearities and the linear indices of refraction and spectral dispersion.

© 1985 Optical Society of America