Surface plasmon resonance effect, nonlinearity and faraday rotation properties of magneto optical glass: Influence of diamagnetic Ag@ZrO2 nanoparticles

Abstract In this study, for the first time we report the influence of Ag@ZrO2 nanocomposites to diamagnetic glass forming ability, structure, Plasmon, nonlinear, hardness and Faraday rotation properties. Spherical Ag@ZrO2 nanocomposites with average 50 nm size were synthesized and well dispersed without oxidation of silver. XRD, XPS, FT-IR and Raman spectra displayed the pure Ag0 and monoclinic ZrO2 phases with typical ZrO2 (m) vibration modes. Due to the high polarizability and large mass, high valence Zr4+ existed in glass as ZrO4 which strengthened the glass network, so good quality and transparent glasses were obtained for 0–3% Ag@ZrO2 doping amount. 3% Ag/ZrO2 containing glass presented strong SPR effect, the biggest hardness of 497HV, giant nonlinear refractive index of 3.44×10−17 m2/W and the highest Verdet constant of 0.2002 min/G.cm which make the glass most suitable for magneto optical, nonlinear and photonic applications.