Enhanced nonlinear optical properties of laser deposited Ag/BaTiO3 nanocomposite films

The composite films containing Ag particles embedded in BaTiO3 matrix were deposited on MgO (100) substrates by using the pulsed laser deposition technique and characterized by x-ray diffraction and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The absorption peak resulting from the surface plasmon resonance of Ag particles is found at the wavelength of 430 nm. The third-order nonlinear optical characteristics of the Elms are determined by z-scan technique using a nanosecond laser. The results show that the Ag/BaTiO3 nanocomposite Elms exhibit great optical nonlinearities and the real and imaginary parts of the third-order nonlinear susceptibility chi(3) are calculated to be 4.544 X 10(-6) esu and 2.352 x 10(-7) esu, respectively. The enhancement mechanism of chi(3) is discussed.