Optical Power Limiting in Fluorinated Graphene Oxide: An Insight into the Nonlinear Optical Properties

Fluorination of carbon nanomaterials has many advantages due to the unique nature of the carbon fluorine (C-F) bond. In this work, we report the optical power limiting properties of fluorinated graphene oxide (F-GO) using the optical z-scan technique. In addition, we used the photoacoustic technique to gain insight into the nonlinear processes involved in the optical limiting of samples. The photoacoustic technique enabled us to confirm that optical limiting observed in F-GO at low fluence arises from nonlinear absorption, while that at higher fluence is due to nonlinear scattering. Moreover, we found that F-GO has high nonlinear absorption and nonlinear scattering and its optical limiting threshold is about an order of magnitude better than that of graphene oxide (GO).