Femtosecond Z-scan and degenerate four-wave mixing measurements of real and imaginary parts of the third-order nonlinearity of soluble conjugated polymers

• DOI: 10.1364/josab.15.000817
• Publication Date: 2008-03-20T17:21:18Z
• Authors: Marek Samoc; Anna Samoc; Barry Luther-Davies; Zhenan Bao; Luping Yu; Bing Hsieh; Ullrich Scherf
• Keywords: Z-scan technique; Figure of Merit; Four-wave mixing

We investigated the third-order nonlinear optical properties of several soluble π-conjugated polymers with a goal reliable determination parameters that characterize nonlinearity, such as real and imaginary parts refractive index n2 one-photon loss two-photon merit factors W T, respectively. The measurements were performed at 800 nm 100-fs pulses from an amplified Ti:sapphire system. present results investigations 2,5-substituted poly(p-phenylene vinylenes), including poly[2-methoxy-5-(2′-ethyl-hexyloxy)-p-phenylenevinylene] ladder poly (p-phenylene) polymer. In particular, Z-scan polymer solutions found to be useful for complex index. could verified by time-dependent degenerate four-wave mixing studies on thin films polymers. generally good agreement between values determined Z scan those mixing. indicate order 10-12 cm2/W can readily obtained various conjugated However, T larger than unity are commonly encountered within absorption ranges these compounds.