Femtosecond nonlinear optical properties of carbon nanoparticles

The nonlinear optical properties and ultrafast electron-relaxation dynamics of carbon nanoparticles were investigated by using the femtosecond optical Kerr effect and pump-probe techniques. The blueshift of the absorption edge with the decrease of the size of the nanoparticles reveals the opening of the gap. The magnitude of chi((3)) for carbon nanoparticles is calculated to be 8.3x10(-13) esu, which arises from the contribution of delocalized feature of the pi electrons. The decay of photobleaching includes a fast and a slow component, which are assigned to the relaxation of the free carriers and trapped carriers, respectively. It is found that the lifetimes of two components of bleaching decrease as temperature of heat treatment is increased. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.