New composite glass materials for non-linear optical applications

Metal nanocluster composite glasses were prepared via evaporation of a thin gold layer followed by diffusion. The effect of the deposition conditions, resulting in different evaporated gold thicknesses, and the influence of diffusion temperature and time have been studied. Resonance enhancement of chi((3)) with in-diffusion of gold was exploited for high non-linearity at wavelength above 1000nm. The deposition conditions and diffusion parameters have shown to influence the size of the metal nanoclusters and hence, the absorption bands where the surface plasmon resonance appears. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.