Abstract

Water-in-oil micro-emulsions are stable suspensions of surfactant coated water droplets dispersed in an oil-like organic solvent. An incident optical beam with a strong power gradient, such as a strongly focused Gaussian beam, can alter the local concentration of the water droplets via an electro-strictive force. Due to the rather large refractive index contrast between the water droplets and the oil continuum, strong self­focusing can be induced in these materials at rather modest incident powers [1]. We have carried out a series of Z-scan measurements in an attempt to fully characterize these induced nonlinearties.

© 1998 IEEE