Strong thermal optical nonlinearity caused by CdSe nanoparticles synthesised in smectic ionic liquid crystal |
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| Authors: | A Lyashchova D Fedorenko Yu Garbovskiy T Mirnaya V Asaula |
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| Institution: | 1. Institute of Physics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine;2. Department of Physics, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, USA;3. V.I. Vernadsky Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine |
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| Abstract: | Spectral and nonlinear optical properties of cadmium octanoate composites containing CdSe nanoparticles (NPs) have been studied by using optical absorption spectroscopy and laser scanning technique (Z-scan). CdSe NPs are chemically synthesised in thermotropic ionic liquid crystal (ILC) phase of cadmium octanoate which is used as nanoreactor. Anisotropic glassy nanocomposites are obtained by the rapid cooling of the ILC phase of nanocomposites to room temperature. The sizes of the CdSe NPs are determined from the absorption spectra. The thermo-optical nonlinearity of the new nanocomposites is characterised by extremely large value of the nonlinear refractive index, n2, under relatively low-powered CW laser irradiation. This nonlinearity is caused by (1) the efficient light-induced heating due to the CdSe NPs strong exciton absorption, and (2) consequent thermal dissipation, which in turn, produces the photoelastic tensions in the glassy smectic matrix. |
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| Keywords: | thermo-optical nonlinearity smectic ionic liquid crystals CdSe nanoparticles glassy smectic Z-scan |
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