The influence of quantum confinement on third-order nonlinearities in porous silicon thin films

We present an experimental investigation into the third-order nonlinearity of conventional crystalline (c-Si) and porous (p-Si) silicon with Z-scan technique at 800-nm and 2.4-μm wavelengths. The Gaussian decomposition method is applied to extract the nonlinear refractive index, n2, and the two-photon absorption (TPA) coefficient, β, from the experimental results. The nonlinear refractive index obtained for c-Si is 7± 2× 10−6 cm2/GW and for p-Si is −9± 3× 10−5 cm2/GW. The TPA coefficient was found to be 2.9± 0.9 cm/GW and 1.0± 0.3 cm/GW for c-Si and p-Si, respectively. We show an enhancement of the nonlinear refraction and a suppression of TPA in p-Si in comparison to c-Si, and the enhancement gets stronger as the wavelength increases.

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