Synthesis and Third-order Optical Nonlinearity of Mesoporous Au/ZrO₂ Thin Films

Highly dispersed gold nanoparticles incorporated mesoporous zirconia thin films were synthesized through an easy deposition-precipitation method using urea as precipitator. The resultant composite thin films presented an enhanced off-resonant third-order optical nonlinear susceptibility of 10 -10 esu measured by Z-scan technique at 1064 nm. The enhanced optical nonlinearity of the composite thin films was attributed to the high dispersion of the gold nanoparticles and the high linear refractive index of the zirconia matrix.