Near-infrared Kerr nonlinearity of Pb(PO3)2-WO3 glasses

We report measurements of the nonlinear refractive index, n(2), and the nonlinear absorption coefficient, alpha(2), of Pb(PO3)(2)-WO3 glasses. The measurements were performed using 100 fs (17 ps) laser pulses at 800 nm (1064 nm). Positive values of n(2) similar to 10(-19) m(2)/W and negligible alpha(2) were measured. The results show that the nonlinearity is faster than 100 fs and it is observed an increase of n(2) with the increasing of the WO3 amount in the samples. The Boling, Glass, and Owyoung model, based on the semiclassical harmonic oscillator model, was used to predict the values of n(2), with basis on the values of the linear refractive index of the samples. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3514570]