Gold nanorods (GNRs) with surface plasmon resonance peak at 1063.8 nm were fabricated and experimentally exploited as the single and combined saturable absorber (SA) in a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser for the first time. In the situation using GNRs as a single SA, the maximum pulse energy of 19 J was achieved at a pulse repetition rate of 20 kHz. However, due to the small effective modulation depth of the GNRs, microsecond pulses were generated in such a GNRs-based passively Q-switched laser. A novel configuration using GNRs as a combined SA in an acoustooptic Q-switched Nd: YAG laser was proposed. The small nonlinear loss modulation induced by the GNRs played a distinctive role in flexibly manipulating the nanosecond pulse waveforms. Our study demonstrated the feasibility of generating high-energy pulses by singly using GNRs-based SA in all solid-state lasers. Meanwhile, a new application mode incorporating GNRs as a combined SA was studied, providing an alternative method to take advantage of the nanomaterial-based SA with a relatively small modulation depth.
Au/ZnS/CdS core/shell nanorods were synthesized via layer-by-layer over-growing sulfide semiconductors ZnS and CdS onto Au-core nanorods, and the thickness of ZnS and CdS layers was tuned by adjusting the amounts of the added metal (Zn/Cd) salts. Owing to efficient interaction between the metal and semiconductor components in the multi-core/shell nanorods, we observed redshift of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) band, enhancement of the SPR intensity, and generation of a new SPR band. Furthermore, the spectral redshift and enhancement were also observed in the excitonic fluorescence of the Au/ZnS/CdS core/shell nanorods, which is caused by the interaction between activated excitons in the CdS shell and the transverse SPR of the Au nanorod and can be tuned by adjusting the thickness of the middle shell (ZnS). These observations have prospective applications in active plasmonic nanodevices.
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