Defect assisted saturable absorption characteristics in Al and Li doped ZnO thin films

The influence of different doping ratios of Al and Li on the nonlinear optical properties, namely, a two-photon absorption and a nonlinear refraction using single beam Z-scan technique, of nanocrystalline ZnO thin films has been investigated in the present study. A sol-gel spin-coated pure ZnO, Al-doped ZnO (AZO), and Li-doped ZnO (LZO) thin films have been prepared. The stoichiometric deviations induced by the occupancy of Al3+ and Li+ ions at the interstitial sites injects the compressive stress in the AZO and LZO thin films, respectively, while the extended defect states below the conduction band leads to a redshift of energy band gap in the corresponding films as compared to pure ZnO thin film. Switching from an induced absorption in ZnO and 1 at. wt. % doped AZO and LZO films to a saturable absorption (SA) in 2 at. wt. % doped AZO and LZO films has been observed, and it is attributed to the saturation of a linear absorption of the defect states. The closed aperture Z-scan technique revealed the self-focusing (a positive nonlinear refractive index) in all the films, which emerge out of the thermo-optical effects due to the continuous illumination of laser pulses. A higher third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility chi((3)) of the order 10(-3) esu has been observed in all the films. Published by AIP Publishing.