Ultrafast third-order optical nonlinearities of heavy metal oxide glasses containing gold nanoparticles

•Nonlinear optical effects were investigated in GeO2–Bi2O3 glasses with and without Au nanoparticles.•Nonlinear refractive index spectra were measured from 480 to 1500nm.•The nonlinear refractive index is a ultrafast electronic process in this sample.•Saturable absorption was observed within the pla...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optical materials 2014-02, Vol.36 (4), p.829-832
Main Authors: Almeida, Juliana M.P., da Silva, Diego S., Kassab, Luciana R.P., Zilio, Sergio C., Mendonça, Cleber R., De Boni, Leonardo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Birefringence
Electronics
Exact sciences and technology
Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications)
Glass
Glasses
Gold
Nanoparticles
Nonlinear optics
Nonlinear refractive index
Nonlinearity
Optical Kerr gate
Optical materials
Optical susceptibility, hyperpolarizability
Optics
Physics
Refractive index
Refractivity
Response time
Ultrafast response
Wave optics
Z-scan
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Summary:•Nonlinear optical effects were investigated in GeO2–Bi2O3 glasses with and without Au nanoparticles.•Nonlinear refractive index spectra were measured from 480 to 1500nm.•The nonlinear refractive index is a ultrafast electronic process in this sample.•Saturable absorption was observed within the plasmon band. This work reports on the third-order nonlinear properties and the response time of GeO2–Bi2O3 glass, as well as the effect of gold nanoparticles on these properties. The nonlinear refractive index spectrum and the nonlinear absorption coefficient were determined by the Z-scan technique, and the response time was obtained through Kerr gate measurements, using femtosecond pulses. The results show that the presence of gold nanoparticles causes a saturable absorption effect that is overcome by the two-photon absorption process at higher light intensities, for wavelengths within the plasmon band. We measured a constant value for the nonlinear refractive index (n2) for the visible and infrared regions, which was not affected by the presence of gold nanoparticles in the sample. However, the n2 value is one order of magnitude higher than the one for fused silica and 1.5times better than PGO (PbO–GeO2) glasses. In addition, the response time of the induced birefringence for the samples with and without gold nanoparticles is faster than the pulse duration (220fs), indicating an ultra-fast electronic process.
ISSN:0925-3467
1873-1252
DOI:10.1016/j.optmat.2013.12.012