Nonlinear Optical Properties of Ag Nanoclusters and Nanoparticles Dispersed in a Glass Host

Abstract

The nonlinear absorption of Ag atomic clusters and nanoparticles dispersed in a transparent oxyfluoride glass host has been studied. The as-prepared glass, containing 0.15 at.% Ag, shows an absorption band in the UV/violet attributed to the presence of amorphous Ag atomic nanoclusters with an average size of 1.2 nm. Upon heat-treatment the Ag nanoclusters coalesce into larger nanoparticles that show a surface plasmon absorption band in the visible.Open aperture z-scan experiments using 480 nm nanosecond laser pulses demonstrated nonsaturated and saturated nonlinear absorption with large nonlinear absorption indices for the Ag nanoclusters and nanoparticles, respectively. These properties are promising, e.g., for applications in optical limiting and object's contrast enhancement.

Optical and Nonlinear Properties of Photonic Polymer Nanocomposites and Holographic Gratings Modified with Noble Metal Nanoparticles

“…Silver and gold NPs are most commonly used to create functional composite materials. Silver NPs are of particular interest because their absorption bands in the optical spectral region are characterized by a greater oscillator strength than that for Au NPs ( [42] and references therein). Thus, higher nonlinear absorption coefficients can be expected for Ag NPs than for Au NPs under equal conditions.…”

Effect of Size on the Saturable Absorption and Reverse Saturable Absorption in Silver Nanoparticle and Ultrafast Dynamics at 400 nm

“…Their studies show that different mechanisms are responsible for their NLO properties, which include saturable absorption (SA), two-photon absorption (2PA), optical limiting (OL), and optical Kerr nonlinearities. SA has a profound influence on the overall nonlinear optical response at suf-ficiently high power of the employed laser pulse [23]. Another phenomenon called reverse saturable absorption (RSA) [17,24,25] may counteract the absorption saturation processes.…”

Incorporation of Ag-In 2 O 3 nanostructures into sodium borosilicate glass: A combined route for high transparency and fluorescence

“…However, the unprotected metal nanoparticles are easily aggregated by the van der Waals forces that induce strong short-range isotropic interactions [12]. It seems difficult to avoid the aggregation even when the metal nanoparticles are dispersed into the solution [13]. How to select a more durable and stable host used to incorporate metal nanoparticles is thus a subject of the research.…”

“…Bulk glass hosts have many attractive advantages such as extraordinary transparency, high mechanical strength, excellent thermal and chemical stability, convenient processing character, and good radiation hardness [13,14]. Bulk glass hosts incorporated with metal nanoparticles have exhibited bright prospects for the potential applications in photonics [15], optical limiting [16], optical waveguide [17], nonlinear optics [18], and so on.…”