Investigation of optical limiting properties of aluminium nanoparticles prepared by pulsed laser ablation in different carrier media

Abstract

In this communication, we carried out the systematic investigation of nonlinear absorption and scattering properties of Aluminium nanoparticles (Al NPs) in various polar and non-polar solvents. Al NPs were synthesized with pulsed Nd:YAG laser operated at 1064 nm by ablating Al target in polar and non-polar liquid environment like chloroform, chlorobenzene, toluene, benzene, and carbon tetrachloride. Synthesized Al NPs colloids of various solvents differ in appearance and UV-Vis extinction spectra exhibit absorption in the UV region. The characterization of Al NPs performed by Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies reveal that NPs are made up of a well crystallized Al inner part (bright zone) embedded with an amorphous metal Al shell (dark region). Growth, aggregation, and precipitation mechanisms which influence the optical properties and stability of NPs are found to be related to the dipole moment of the surrounding liquid environment. The nonlinear absorption and scattering studies are performed by open aperture Z-scan technique with 532 nm under nanosecond pulse excitation. The Z-scan measurements are fitted theoretically to estimate both two-photon absorption (TPA) and nonlinear scattering (NLS) coefficients. In polar solvents like chlorobenzene, chloroform synthesized Al NPs exhibited higher TPA, NLS coefficient values, and lower optical limiting threshold values in comparison with partially polar solvent like toluene and non-polar solvents like benzene and carbontetrachloride. These results indicate the potential use of Al NPs as a versatile optical limiting material. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.