Experimental investigation to determine the optical properties of (Fe2O3)1-x(NiO)x thin films prepared by PLD technique for NLO applications

Abstract In this work, we have synthesized (Fe2O3)1-x: (NiO)x thin films by pulsed laser deposition, then study the impact of NiO doping concentrations on the linear and nonlinear optical characteristics. The optical properties were investigated by the UV–visible spectrophotometer. The transmittance was influenced by NiO doping concentrations as well as the absorption and extinction coefficients. Moreover, the band gap was found to decrease from 2.69371 to 2.41751 eV with increasing NiO contents in the Fe2O3 matrix. Furthermore, the nonlinear optical parameters were estimated based on the Wemple-DiDomenico model, the single-oscillator energy was increased from 2.29 to 2.86 eV as the dispersion energy was found to increase from 8.04 to 16.72 eV by increasing NiO doping concentrations, the third-order nonlinear susceptibility was found to increase in the doped films from 1.04 × 10–12 to 7.96 × 10–12 esu. The best result was achieved in (Fe2O3)0.98: (NiO)0.02 thin film where the highest nonlinear optical constants were obtained which make it a potential candidate in nonlinear optics (NLO) applications.