Influence of preparation method on the structural, linear, and nonlinear optical properties of TiN nanoparticles

In this paper, titanium nitride nanoparticles were prepared in three methods; in the first method, titanium nitride nanoparticles were prepared by the ball milling method; in the second and third methods, the nanoparticles were synthesized by the sol–gel and the co-precipitation methods. The samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), UV–Vis and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopies, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), for the study of structural, chemical composition, and linear optical properties, respectively. Moreover, using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), the surface morphology of the samples was investigated. The XRD results showed the effect of calcination in ammonia atmosphere at 1000 °C, obtaining the pure TiN structure. However, because of oxidation in the ambient atmosphere, the titanium oxide phase was created, which was found by EDS spectroscopy and led to the creation of $${\text {TiN}}_{1-x}{\text {{O}}}_{x}$$ alloy with two bandgap energy. The nonlinear optical properties of TiN nanoparticles were studied via the Z-scan technique. The nonlinear optical behavior was found as a function of input pump power and concentration of the TiN nanoparticles. Moreover, the nonlinear optical behavior of the TiN nanoparticles shifts from inverse saturation absorption to saturation absorption with the increase in intensity. Overall, the results showed that the TiN nanoparticles give new potentials in nonlinear optical applications.