Third-Order Nonlinear Optical Response near the Plasmon Resonance Band of Cu2-xSe Nanocrystals

The third-order nonlinear optical properties of water-soluble Cu Se nanocrystals are studied in the near infrared range of 700-980 nm using a femtosecond pulsed laser by the Z-scan technique. It is observed that the nonlinear optical response of Cu Se nanocrystals is sensitively dependent on the excitation wavelength and exhibits the enhanced nonlinearity compared with other selenides such as ZnSe and CdSe. The W-shaped Z-scan trace, a mixture of the reversed saturated absorption and saturated absorption, is observed near the plasmon resonance band of Cu Se nanocrystals, which is attributed to the state-filling of free carriers generated by copper vacancies (self-doping effect) of Cu Se nanocrystals as well as the hot carrier thermal effect upon intense femtosecond laser excitation. The large nonlinear optical response and tunable plasmonic band make Cu Se nanocrystals promising materials for applications in ultra-fast all-optical switching devices as well as nonlinear nanosensors.

Synthesis of Poly[(3-octanoylpyrrole-2,5-diyl)-p-(N,N-dimethylamino)benzylidene] and Its Properties by Nitrogen Ion Implantation

A novel soluble π-conjugated polymer, poly[(3-octanoylpyrrole-2,5-diyl)-p-(N,N-dimethylamino)benzylidene](POPDMABE), was synthesized firstly by the condensation of 3-octanoylpyrrole with para-dimethylaminobenzaldehyde. The chemical structure of the polymer was characterized by FTIR and 1H NMR spectrometries. The polymer is a potential nonlinear optical(NLO) material. According to the function of optical forbidden band gap(E_g) and photon energy(hν), the optical forbidden band gaps of the polymer before and after ion implantation were calculated. The resonant third-order nonlinear optical properties of POPDMABE before and after ion implantation were also studied by using the degenerate four-wave mixing(DFWM) technique at 532 nm. When the energy is 25 keV and the dose is 2.2×10 17 ions/cm 2, the {polymer′s} optical forbidden band gap is about 1.63 eV which is smaller than that of the non-implanted sample(1.98 eV) and the resonant third-order NLO susceptibility of POPDMABE is about 4.3×10 -7 esu, 1 order of magnitude higher than that of the non-implanted sample(4.1×10 -8 esu). The results show that nitrogen ion implantation is an effective method to improve the resonant third-order NLO property of the polymer.

Complete crossing of Fano resonances in an optical microcavity via nonlinear tuning

We report on the modeling, simulation, and experimental demonstration of complete mode crossings of Fano resonances within chip-integrated microresonators. The continuous reshaping of resonant line shapes is achieved via nonlinear thermo-optical tuning when the cavity-coupled optical pump is partially absorbed by the material.The locally generated heat then produces a thermal field, which influences the spatially overlapping optical modes, allowing us to alter the relative spectral separation of resonances. Furthermore, we exploit such tunability to continuously probe the coupling between different families of quasi-degenerate modes that exhibit asymmetric Fano interactions. As a particular case, we demonstrate a complete disappearance of one of the modal features in the transmission spectrum as predicted by Fano [Phys. Rev. 124, 1866(1961)]. The phenomenon is modeled as a third-order nonlinearity with a spatial distribution that depends on the stored optical field and thermal diffusion within the resonator. The performed nonlinear numerical simulations are in excellent agreement with the experimental results, which confirm the validity of the developed theory.