Two Photon Absorption, Nonlinear Refraction, And Optical Limiting In Semiconductors

Eric W. Van Stryland; H. Vanherzeele; M. A. Woodall; M. J. Soileau; Arthur L. Smirl; Shekhar Guha; Thomas F. Boggess

doi:10.1117/12.7973538

1 August 1985 Two Photon Absorption, Nonlinear Refraction, And Optical Limiting In Semiconductors

Eric W. Van Stryland, H. Vanherzeele, M. A. Woodall, M. J. Soileau, Arthur L. Smirl, Shekhar Guha, Thomas F. Boggess

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Optical Engineering, Vol. 24, Issue 4, 244613 (August 1985). https://doi.org/10.1117/12.7973538

Abstract

Two-photon absorption coefficients /32 of ten direct gap semiconductors with band-gap energy Eg varying between 1 .4 and 3.7 eV were measured using 1.06 µm and 0.53 um picosecond pulses. $2 was found to scale as E43, as predicted by theory for the samples measured. Extension of the empirical relationship between $2 and Eg to InSb with Eg = 0.2 eV also provides agree-ment between previously measured values and the predicted 02. In addition, the absolute values of $2 are in excellent agreement (the average difference being <26%) with recent theory, which includes the effects of nonparabolic bands. The nonlinear refraction induced in these materials was monitored and found to agree well with the assumption that the self-refraction originates from the two-photon-generated free carriers. The observed self-defocusing yields an effective nonlinear index as much as two orders of magnitude larger than CS2 for comparable irradiances. This self-defocusing, in conjunction with two-photon absorption, was used to construct a simple, effective optical limiter that has high transmission at low input irradiance and low transmission at high input irradiance. The device is the optical analog of a Zener diode.

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Eric W. Van Stryland, H. Vanherzeele, M. A. Woodall, M. J. Soileau, Arthur L. Smirl, Shekhar Guha, and Thomas F. Boggess "Two Photon Absorption, Nonlinear Refraction, And Optical Limiting In Semiconductors," Optical Engineering 24(4), 244613 (1 August 1985). https://doi.org/10.1117/12.7973538

Published: 1 August 1985

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