Sensitive measurement of optical nonlinearity in amorphous chalcogenide materials in nanosecond regime.

The present work focuses on the nonlinear optical behavior of chalcogenide As(2)S(3) film as well as on bulk material. The thin film of As(2)S(3) grown by thermal evaporation and bulk glass developed by melt-quenched technique has been characterized using nanosecond pulses of Nd:YAG (532 nm) and Nd:YVO(4) (1,064 nm) laser. Using Z-scan technique, the laser induced nonlinear optical parameters viz. nonlinear refractive index (n(2)), nonlinear absorption coefficient (β) and third order nonlinear susceptibility (χ(3)) have been estimated. At 1,064 nm excitation, the materials exhibit stronger nonlinearity as compared to that of 532 nm laser. In case of As(2)S(3) thin film, observed nonlinearity attributes to two-photon absorption. The optical limiting response of chalcogenide film as well as bulk sample has also been reported. The study predicts that the As(2)S(3) thin film is a better optical limiting material than bulk glass due to relatively higher nonlinearity and lower limiting threshold.