Optical Nonlinearities in Glasses

Abstract

The field of photonics has been the target of constant innovations based on a deep knowledge of the nonlinear optical (NLO) properties of materials and especially on information/data technologies. This chapter compiles some of the main physical aspects needed to understand NLO responses, especially in glasses. Any deviation from the linear correlation between a material’s polarization response and the electric component of an applied electromagnetic field is an example of nonlinear optic behavior. Heavy metal oxide and chalcogenide glasses offer the largest nonlinear response. For example, high refractive index and high dispersion glasses fall in the type of non-resonant devices, while the resonant ones comprise metal nanoparticle doped glasses. Metal nanoparticles’ doped glasses can be pre- pared by the sol-gel method. The optical absorption spectrum of Ag-doped silica glass shows the presence of an absorption band of surface Plasmon Resonance due to Ag nanoparticles at 420 nm and Z-scan has been used to study the NLO properties. This chapter contains a brief discussion of the basic principles of nonlinear optics, the review of the nonlinear optical of glass in general, and two separate sections concerning the nonlinear optical effects in the glasses doped with quantum dots and metals, respectively.

An Introduction to Nonlinear Integrated Photonics Devices: Nonlinear Effects and Materials

“…Glasses are interesting non-linear optical materials, being isotropic and transparent in a wide spectral range, combining a low cost of fabrication with high optical quality, manufacturable not only as bulk shapes, or fibers, but also as thin films (e.g., nonlinear planar waveguides) [ 100 , 101 ]. The peculiar characteristics of glass materials are that their optical properties can be adjusted through doping and compositional changes to fit the specified requests of each application.…”

“…The field of third-order nonlinear phenomena of glasses has been mainly focused on two main groups: resonant and non-resonant [ 100 , 101 ]. Non-resonant phenomena occur when the light excitation falls in the transparent wavelengths range of the glass longer than its electronic absorption edge.…”

“…QD-doped glasses can be prepared through the dispersion of a nanocrystalline phase in a glass matrix. This approach, through the reduction of bulk size to nanometric scale or quasi-zero-dimensional quantum dots, allows the change of the electronic properties of glasses accordingly with enhanced nonlinearity compared with the corresponding bulk semiconductors [ 100 , 101 ].…”

Physical and optical properties of ternary lead-bismuth tellurite glass

“…The last three decades wittenessed the great attention that the scientific researchers paid to tellurite glasses due to their unique chemical and physical properties and a broad range of applications such as laser hosts [ 1 ], second harmonic generation [ 2 ], optical switching devices [ 3 ], Raman amplification [ 4 ], and erasable optical recording media [ 5 ]. As amatter of fact, tellurite glasses possess low melting temperature (around 800 C o ), high nonlinear refractive indices [ 6 ], low phonon energy (=750 cm −1 ) [ 7 ], good Infrared transmittance [ 8 ], high dielectric constant [ 9 ], good corrosion resistance, excellent third order nonlinear optical properties, and high rare earth ion solubility [ 10 ].…”