Nonlinear optical characterization of the Ag nanoparticles doped in polyvinyl alcohol films

The effect of silver nanoparticles doped in polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) on the nonlinear optical properties of composite films is studied experimentally. Samples are PVA films of 0.14 mm thickness doped with different concentrations of silver nanoparticles. Nonlinear optical properties of doped polymer films are studied experimentally employing Z-scan techniques. Experiments are performed using the second harmonic of a continuous Nd-Yag laser beam at 532 nm wavelength and 45 mW power. The effect of nonlinear refractive index of samples is obtained by measuring the profile of propagated beam through the samples and their nonlinear refractive index is found to be negative. The nonlinear absorption coefficient is calculated using open aperture Z-scan data while its nonlinear refractive index is measured using the closed aperture Z-scan data, leads to measuring the third order susceptibility |χ(3)|. Real and imaginary parts of the third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility |χ(3)| are decrease with increasing the concentration of Ag nanoparticles in the films. The values of thermo-optic coefficient are determined at different concentrations of silver nanoparticles for samples.