Nonlinear optical properties of novel organic-inorganic hybrid materials based on functional block copolymers and metal nanoparticles

During the last few years the study of electrical, linear and nonlinear optical properties of metallic nanoparticles has gained considerable attention as metallic nanoparticles with nanometer sizes exhibit very different properties than bulk metals making them suitable candidates for a plethora of photonic and optoelectronic applications. Recently, in our laboratory, considerable effort has been put in the systematic study of the nonlinear optical properties of various metallic nanoparticles (Au, Ag, Pd, Fe₂O₃, etc.) either deposited on substrates forming continuous (i.e. metallic) or non-continuous (i.e. dielectric) films, or in colloids and encapsulated in polymers forming hybrid organic-inorganic nanomaterials (e.g. micelles), trying to establish correlations between their morphological and structural characteristics and the nonlinear optical response that exhibit under coherent laser light irradiation. Towards this goal we are collaborating with several synthetic chemistry research groups from Israel (Prof. I. Rubinstein, Weizmann Institute), Greece (Dr S. Pispas, National Hellenic Research Foundation) and Cyprus (Prof. T. Krasia, University of Cyprus).