Optothermal nonlinearity of silica aerogel

Maria Chiara Braidotti; Silvia Gentilini; Adam Fleming; Michiel Christiaan Samuels; Andrea Di Falco; Claudio Conti

doi:10.1063/1.4959240

Optothermal nonlinearity of silica aerogel

Maria Chiara Braidotti, Silvia Gentilini, Adam Fleming, Michiel Christiaan Samuels, Andrea Di Falco, Claudio Conti

School of Physics and Astronomy

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Abstract

We report on the characterization of silica aerogel thermal optical nonlinearity, obtained by z-scan technique. The results show that typical Silica Aerogels have nonlinear optical coefficient similar to that of glass (≃ 10^-12m²/W), with negligible optical nonlinear absorption. The nonlinear coefficient can be increased to values in the range of 10^-10m²/W by embedding an absorbing dye in the Aerogel. This value is one order of magnitude higher than that observed in the pure dye and in typical highly nonlinear materials like liquid crystals.

Original language	English
Article number	041104
Number of pages	5
Journal	Applied Physics Letters
Volume	109
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4959240
Publication status	Published - 25 Jul 2016

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10.1063/1.4959240

Aerogel_01072016
Copyright 2016 the Authors. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at http://apl.aip.org/
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@article{29ba2c5d8ca04ec9ac69a2fe5d13a292,

title = "Optothermal nonlinearity of silica aerogel",

abstract = "We report on the characterization of silica aerogel thermal optical nonlinearity, obtained by z-scan technique. The results show that typical Silica Aerogels have nonlinear optical coefficient similar to that of glass (≃ 10-12m2/W), with negligible optical nonlinear absorption. The nonlinear coefficient can be increased to values in the range of 10-10m2/W by embedding an absorbing dye in the Aerogel. This value is one order of magnitude higher than that observed in the pure dye and in typical highly nonlinear materials like liquid crystals.",

author = "Braidotti, \{Maria Chiara\} and Silvia Gentilini and Adam Fleming and Samuels, \{Michiel Christiaan\} and \{Di Falco\}, Andrea and Claudio Conti",

note = "The authors acknowledge support from EPSRC (EP/J004200/1), the Templeton Foundation (grant number 58277) and the ERC project VANGUARD (grant number 664782).",

year = "2016",

month = jul,

day = "25",

doi = "10.1063/1.4959240",

language = "English",

volume = "109",

journal = "Applied Physics Letters",

issn = "0003-6951",

publisher = "American Institute of Physics",

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TY - JOUR

T1 - Optothermal nonlinearity of silica aerogel

AU - Braidotti, Maria Chiara

AU - Gentilini, Silvia

AU - Fleming, Adam

AU - Samuels, Michiel Christiaan

AU - Di Falco, Andrea

AU - Conti, Claudio

N1 - The authors acknowledge support from EPSRC (EP/J004200/1), the Templeton Foundation (grant number 58277) and the ERC project VANGUARD (grant number 664782).

PY - 2016/7/25

Y1 - 2016/7/25

N2 - We report on the characterization of silica aerogel thermal optical nonlinearity, obtained by z-scan technique. The results show that typical Silica Aerogels have nonlinear optical coefficient similar to that of glass (≃ 10-12m2/W), with negligible optical nonlinear absorption. The nonlinear coefficient can be increased to values in the range of 10-10m2/W by embedding an absorbing dye in the Aerogel. This value is one order of magnitude higher than that observed in the pure dye and in typical highly nonlinear materials like liquid crystals.

AB - We report on the characterization of silica aerogel thermal optical nonlinearity, obtained by z-scan technique. The results show that typical Silica Aerogels have nonlinear optical coefficient similar to that of glass (≃ 10-12m2/W), with negligible optical nonlinear absorption. The nonlinear coefficient can be increased to values in the range of 10-10m2/W by embedding an absorbing dye in the Aerogel. This value is one order of magnitude higher than that observed in the pure dye and in typical highly nonlinear materials like liquid crystals.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/84979970332

U2 - 10.1063/1.4959240

DO - 10.1063/1.4959240

M3 - Letter

SN - 0003-6951

VL - 109

JO - Applied Physics Letters

JF - Applied Physics Letters

IS - 4

M1 - 041104

ER -

Optothermal nonlinearity of silica aerogel

Abstract

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Hawking Radiation in Dielectric Horizon: Hawking Radiation in Dielectric Horizon Analogues

Data Underpinning - Optothermal nonlinearity of Silica Aerogel

Linear and Nonlinear Optical Properties of Silica Aerogel (Thesis data)

Optical shock waves in silica aerogel

Linear and nonlinear optical properties of silica aerogel

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Optothermal nonlinearity of silica aerogel

Abstract

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Other files and links

Fingerprint

Projects

Hawking Radiation in Dielectric Horizon: Hawking Radiation in Dielectric Horizon Analogues

Datasets

Data Underpinning - Optothermal nonlinearity of Silica Aerogel

Linear and Nonlinear Optical Properties of Silica Aerogel (Thesis data)

Research output

Optical shock waves in silica aerogel

Student theses

Linear and nonlinear optical properties of silica aerogel

Cite this