Sol-gel synthesis and third-order nonlinear optical properties of Cu3.8Ni nanoparticles doped glass

Abstract Sodium borosilicate glasses containing Cu3.8Ni nanoparticles have been successfully prepared by a sol-gel process. The feasibility processes from stiff gel to glass were analyzed by thermal gravimetric (TG) and fourier transform infrared (FT-IR). The microstructure and nonlinear optical properties of the obtained glass were investigated systematically. These results show that the intermetallic Cu3.8Ni nanoparticles in face centered cubic crystal system with spherical shape have distributed uniformly in the glass, and the particle size range from 15 to 40 nm with an average size of 27.5 nm. Moreover, the third-order nonlinear optical properties of Cu3.8Ni nanoparticles doped glass are studied by the Z-scan technique using a femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser pulse. The value of third-order optical nonlinear susceptibility χ(3) is calculated to be 4.92 × 10− 11 esu, which is larger than those of the corresponding monometallic nanoparticles.