Nonlinear Optical Characterization of Organic Materials

We report a sensitive single beam technique for measuring both the nonlinear refractive index and nonlinear absorption coefficient for a wide variety of materials. We describe the experiment and present a brief analysis including cases where nonlinear refraction is accompanied by nonlinear absorption. In these experiments the transmittance of a sample is measured through a finite aperture in the far-field as the sample is moved along the propagation path (z) of a focused Gaussian beam. The sign and magnitude of the nonlinear refraction are easily deduced from such a transmittance curve (Z-scan). Employing this technique a sensitivity of better than A/300 wavefront distortion has been achieved using picosecond frequency doubled N&YAG laser pulses. In cases where nonlinear refraction is accompanied by nonlinear absorption, it is possible to separately evaluate the nonlinear refraction as well as the nonlinear absorption by performing a second Z-scan with the aperture removed. We demonstrate this me...