Abstract Pump fluence and probe wavelength-dependent ultrafast carrier dynamics and optical nonlinear absorption in black phosphorus nanosheets are investigated by transient absorption spectroscopy and open-aperture Z scan techniques. The decay time becomes longer with larger wavelengths under pump wavelengths of both 400 nm and 800 nm excitation. For 800 nm excitation, pump fluence-dependent lifetime shows complex behaviors, which might be due to the competition between the linear absorption and two photon absorption. For 400 nm excitation, an additional decaying channel is observed at a larger pump fluence, which is explained by an effective subband structure. In open-aperture Z scan measurements, strong saturation absorption is observed in the visible region over a broad band from 450 nm to 700 nm. The saturation intensity shows an increasing trend with increase in the wavelength. Also, the saturation intensities under different pulse widths and solvents are discussed in detail. Our results show that black phosphorus nanosheets have great potential in future ultrathin optoelectronic devices.

A bifunctional broadband absorber in the terahertz band based on patterned bulk Dirac semimetal (BDS) and strontium titanate (STO) is proposed. The properties of the absorber are investigated using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The results show that the width of absorption can be modulated from 0.59 THz to 0.7 THz when the Fermi energy of the BDS is independently shifted from 40 meV to 50 meV. By tuning the temperature from 250 K to 400K, the center frequency of the broadband absorption spectrum can be changed from 1.311 THz to 1.505 THz, and the absorption bandwidth broadens from 0.66 THz to 0.81 THz. In addition, the simulation results show that the absorber is insensitive to electromagnetic wave polarization, and can still maintain a stable broadband absorption effect when the oblique incidence is within 40° for TE and TM modes. Based on the impedance matching theory, the physical mechanism of the broadband absorption is analyzed theoretically. This work can provide an alternative way to design high-performance multifunctional tunable terahertz devices.

The Ti3C2 nanosheet, as a new two-dimensional (2D) group, has been found to have attractive characteristics as material for electromagnetic shielding and energy storage. In this study, the nonlinear broadband absorption and ultrafast dynamics of the Ti3C2 nanosheet were investigated using nanosecond open-aperture Z-scan and transient absorption techniques. The mechanism of two-photon absorption (TPA) was revealed in the visible region (475–700 nm). At lower incident energies, nonlinear absorption could not happen. When the laser energy increased to 0.64 GW/cm2, electrons in the valence band could absorb two photons and jump to the conduction band, with TPA occurring, which meant that the sample exhibited reverse saturable absorption (RSA). In addition, when transient absorption was used to investigate the ultrafast carrier dynamics of the sample, it demonstrated that the relaxation contains a fast decay component and a slow one, which are obtained from electron–phonon and phonon–phonon interactions, respectively. Moreover, with the increasing pump fluence, the fast decay lifetime τ1 increased from 3.9 to 4.5 ps, and the slow one τ2 increased from 11.1 to 13.2 ps. These results show that the Ti3C2 nanosheet has potential applications in broadband optical limiters.

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