Influence of Au on the nucleation of Ag nanoparticles in GeO 2 -PbO glasses and characterization of their ultrafast third-order nonlinear responses within the plasmon resonance region

Germanate (GeO 2 -PbO) glasses doped with AgNO 3 and co-doped with AgNO 3 and Au 2 O 3 were synthesized via melting-quenching technique. Silver nanoparticles were nucleated within the sample doped only with AgNO 3 and its plasmon resonance was characterized. The influence of the addition of Au 2 O 3 on the silver nanoparticles nucleation and on the spectroscopic properties of the produced composite materials were investigated using TEM, STEM and UV–Vis spectroscopy. Using the nonlinear ellipse rotation technique, the pure electronic contribution to the samples nonlinear refraction and absorption were characterized within the visible range, including the localized surface plasmon (LSP) resonance wavelength of the metallic nanoparticles. The real and imaginary parts of the third-order nonlinear susceptibility of the glass, composite samples and of the individual nanoparticles were also obtained. In addition, all-optical switching figures of merit of the samples were also calculated. From these results, the dispersion curves of the electronic contribution to the third-order susceptibility of the metallic nanoparticles were obtained and two figures of merit for all-optical switching of the composite materials were calculated. The studied samples are potential candidates for all-optical switching applications with exception to the one with the highest volume filling factor, whose linear and nonlinear absorption coefficients associated to the local field factor deplete the material performance around the LSP resonance wavelength. As far as we know nonlinear ellipse rotation technique was not used before to evaluate the influence of metallic nanoparticles on the nonlinear optical properties of glasses.