Ultrafast cubic optical nonlinearity in semitransparent nickel films: Bulk versus surface contributions

Author

Bennett, P.J. ; Albanis, V. ; Svirko, Yu.P. ; Zheludev, Nikolay I.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Phys., Southampton Univ., UK

fYear

1992

fDate

23-28 May 1992

Firstpage

213

Lastpage

214

Abstract

Summary form only given. We report the results of a study of semitransparent films of nickel of varying thickness using femtosecond time-resolved polarimetry. For the first time we have combined transmission and reflection measurements, and have studied glass and air interfaces of nickel films of different thicknesses. We have identified importance of the surface contribution to the film nonlinearity, and have also observed that not only the magnitude of the cubic nonlinearity in nickel, but even its sign could be different depending on the nature of the interface. We also saw that both bulk and surface components of the cubic optical nonlinearity in nickel films are exceptionally fast with relaxation times shorter than /spl sim/40 fs.

Keywords

light transmission; metallic thin films; nickel; nonlinear optics; 40 fs; Ni; cubic nonlinearity; femtosecond time-resolved polarimetry; film nonlinearity; semitransparent Ni films; surface contributions; ultrafast cubic optical nonlinearity; Nickel; Optical attenuators; Optical films; Optical pumping; Optical refraction; Optical surface waves; Optical variables control; Pump lasers; Semiconductor lasers; Ultrafast optics;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference, 1999. QELS '99. Technical Digest. Summaries of Papers Presented at the

Conference_Location

Baltimore, MD, USA

Print_ISBN

1-55752-576-X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/QELS.1999.807554

Filename

807554