THIRD-ORDER NONLINEAR OPTICAL PROPERTIES AND OPTICAL LIMITING BEHAVIOR OF SOLOCHROME DARK BLUE DYE DOPED POLYMER FILMS

In this paper, we have studied the optical properties of the poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) polymer doped with Solochrome Dark Blue dye as solid films. The nonlinear optical properties of these films were measured by using the z-scan technique with continuous wave (CW) solid-state laser operating at wavelength 532 nm. The nonlinear refractive index (n2), the nonlinear absorption coefficient (β), and the real and imaginary parts of the third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility (χ (3)) were investigated at different dye concentrations. The optical power limiting behavior was also investigated for different dye concentrations. Our experimental results showed that the Solochrome Dark Blue dye-doped polymer films exhibit large optical nonlinearities, hence are suitable for applications on photonic devices and optical limiters.