Nonlinear absorption in undoped and Ge doped layered GaSe semiconductor crystals

P type-GaSe and 0.01 at% Ge doped GaSe crystal were grown using the conventional Bridgman-Stochbarger method from a stoichiometric mixture of starting materials in quartz ampoules, and the nonlinear absorption properties of both crystals have been studied by using an open aperture Z-scan technique under 1064 nm wavelength with 4 ns or 65 ps pulse durations. GaSe crystal exhibits two-photon absorption (TPA) at all input irradiances. On the other hand, at low input irradiance the Ge doped GaSe crystal exhibits saturable absorption (SA). At higher input irradiances TPA becomes dominant. A monotonic increase of the nonlinear absorption coefficient with increasing laser pulse duration from 65 ps to 4 ns is observed for the GaSe and Ge doped GaSe crystals.