Recent advances in poling and nanostructuring of glass

Poling and femtosecond laser writing are two techniques which are normally used for modification of second-order optical nonlinearity and refractive index of glass. Strong dc and light fields are believed to be responsible for such modifications. Recently it has been observed that high dc field can dissolve metal nanoparticles in glass, opening a prospect of new application of poling for engineering of glass-metal nanocomposites. In its turn, formation of 3D self-assembled sub-wavelength periodic structures has been discovered during femtosecond laser direct writing. Recent progress in poling, femtosecond laser direct writing and related nanostructuring of glass is reviewed.