Nanosecond and ultrafast optical power limiting in luminescent Fe2O3 hexagonal nanomorphotype

Nonlinear optical absorption and optical power limiting properties of Fe2O3 hexagonal nanomorphotype are investigated using open aperture Z-scan technique with the 5 ns and 100 fs laser pulses, at 532nm and 800 nm excitation domains. At relatively low pulse energies (below 5 mu J), sample shows saturable absorption (SA), but on going to the higher energies an interesting switch-over from saturable absorption to effective two photon absorption is observed in both excitation domains. The magnitude of effective two photon absorption coefficients is calculated to be in the range of 10(-10) m/W for nanosecond and 10(-15) m/W for femtosecond laser pulse energies, respectively. XRD and TEM study reveals the polycrystalline nature, hexagonal morphology, and size of the nanostructure. The luminescence emission property is examined by photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL). It is found that some strange features exist in the luminescence spectra that are consistent with the nanoparticles size distribution. The PL emission lines are explained as originated from various optical band edges due to the size induced quantum confinement and band gap resonant PL absorption/emission behavior of semiconductor nanostructures. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.