The third order nonlinear optical parameters of a variety of organic solvents are determined under picosecond and femtosecond laser irradiation. Z-scan measurements have been carried out at 35 ps, 532 nm and at 40 fs, 800 nm, while Optical Kerr Effect studies were performed at 35 ps, 532 nm. The target of the present work is to provide a reference of the nonlinear optical response of various widely used organic solvents under the same experimental conditions and render feasible the direct comparison between their nonlinearities.

We present an optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier (OPCPA) delivering CEP-stable ultrashort pulses with 7 fs, high energies of more than 1.8 mJ and high average output power exceeding 10 W at a repetition rate of 6 kHz. The system is pumped by a picosecond regenerative thin-disk amplifier and exhibits an excellent long-term stability. In a proof-of-principle experiment, high harmonic generation is demonstrated in neon up to the 61 order.

Hybrids containing nanodiamonds with controllable content of gold nanoparticles (ND/Au) were prepared and characterized by XRD, TGA and TEM/HRTEM techniques including STEM-EDS chemical mapping. For the first time, the nonlinear optical response of the prepared ND/Au dispersions in DMF was investigated by means of the Z-scan technique using 35 ps, (532 and 1064 nm), and 40 fs (800 nm) laser excitations and is compared with that of neat nanodiamonds.The nanohybrids exhibited important nonlinear optical response, significantly larger than that of neat nanodiamonds under visible 35 ps laser excitation, while they were found to exhibit negligible nonlinear optical response when excited by 1064 nm, 35 ps or 800 nm, 40 fs laser pulses. Gold loading was found to affect significantly their non-linear optical properties therefore providing an easy mean of modulation of their non-linear optical response in view of different photonic and optoelectronic applications, such as optical limiters, optical switches, saturable absorbers etc.

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