Abstract

Interest has increased for the development of materials with large third-order nonlinear optical characteristics. Spatially isotropic materials, such as colloidal suspensions, have demonstrated that their dominant nonlinear response arises from third-order terms in nonlinear susceptibility. Measurements of this nonlinear behavior have been made for many different colloidal materials suspended within a dielectric matrix. Conductive particles and semiconductor microcrystallites show a strong and fast nonlinear response when irradiated with energy near the surface plasma resonance. Due to this frequency dependent behavior, these suspensions are limited in terms of their bandwidth. Suspensions of dielectric spheres (index of refraction different from the matrix material) have also shown nonlinear optical behavior, but the mechanism is entirely different. Movement of the spheres results from the radiation force generated by the incident energy. These colloidal suspensions are broadband, however, their response time is orders of magnitude longer than that seen with the conductive particles. The research to be presented involves the development of a suspension comprised of different colloidal materials (including organometallics). This complex suspension must maintain the critical optical properties of each component, while combining them with one system.

© 1989 Optical Society of America