Third-order optical nonlinearities of sol-gel-processed AuSiO2 thin films in the surface plasmon absorption region

Abstract Nanometer-sized gold particles were prepared in thin-film silica glass by sol-gel processing and their third-order nonlinear optical properties were characterized in the surface plasmon absorption region (530–570 nm), employing the self-diffracted degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) technique. The AuSiO 2 thin films contained 0.73% of Au nanocrystals in volume fraction and the particle diameter was estimated to be ca. 10 nm. By the nanosecond DFWM measurement, the thermo-optical nonlinear optical coefficient χ (3) was obtained as (0.4–2.3) × 10 −8 esu in which the largest value occurred near the surface plasmon frequency.

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