Ultrafast Laser-Induced Precipitation and Reshaping of Silver Nanoparticles in Phosphate Glass

We studied the precipitation process of silver nanoparticles (NPs) in the micron-sized waveguides laser-written in silver-containing phosphate glass. At the elaborated laser-writing regime and controllable writing speed, it is possible to tune the position and shape of the surface plasmon resonance band which reflects the change in the shape of the silver NPs from spherical to spheroidal. The proposed approach can be applied to control the anisotropy of the glass-metal composite materials.