Nonlinear refractive behavior of a transparent glass-ceramic containing NaNbO3 nanocrystals in the infrared

The nonlinear optical behavior of a glass-ceramic containing sodium niobate (NaNbO₃) nanocrystals (GC-SNN) was studied in recent experiments where the third-order susceptibility, χ⁽³⁾, at 532 nm was measured using nanosecond power limiting and picosecond Z-scan techniques. It was shown that the presence of NaNbO₃ nanocrystals influences the magnitude of the nonlinear (two-photon) absorption coefficient (α₂) and the nonlinear refractive index (n₂) of the material. Here we extended our previous studies probing χ⁽³⁾ at wavelengths where nonlinear absorption contributions are negligible.