Measurement of the third order non-linearity of gold-graphene hybrid nanocomposite for near-infrared wavelengths

We present measurements of nonlinear refraction (NLR) and nonlinear absorption (NLA) of single crystalline gold nanosheets (single crystalline-GNSs) and sputter coated polycrystalline thin gold metal film hybridized with multilayer grapheme (MLG) using Z-Scan technique for near-infrared wavelengths (NIR) ranging from 700 nm to 900 nm. Single crystalline GNSs of 20 nm thickness were prepared through chemical synthesis. MLG was found to have few monolayers of graphene, usually between 1-7 layers with an average of 4 monolayer thickness. The composite of GNSs and MLG was prepared by drop casting GNSs on MLG. Z-Scan experimental was carried out using Ti:sapphire femtosecond pulsed laser (700 nm - 900 nm wavelength, 115-130 fs pulse width and 0.82 MHz-82 MHz repetition rate). Intensity dependence on open aperture Z-scan was studied in detail for all materials. The NLA of polycrystalline thin gold metal film was found to be fractionally higher than that of single crystalline-GNSs. This is thought to be due to field enhancement around of gold islands formed on polycrystalline thin gold metal film during sputtering process. At higher repetition rates NLA phenomenon is diminished due to the temperature accumulation effect. As the repetition rate decreases the nonlinear effect is enhanced. On the other hand MLG exhibited saturable absorption (NSA). Z-Scan results for single crystalline and poly crystalline gold-MLG nanocomposite exhibit NSA characteristics. The measured NSA coefficient α' was found to be approximately 1.7×10^-5-4.5×10^-5 cmW^-1 which is lower than that of MLG, clearly demonstrating the effect of hybridization.