Characterization of the nonlinear refractive index and photothermal properties are essential for the application of new photonic materials. The advantages and limitations of the commonly used techniques are related to the material analyzed and the available optical source properties. Here we propose a novel modification of the I-scan experimental setup, the intensity scan technique, adding eclipse detection. The eclipse intensity scan, EI-scan, makes this technique more sensible, providing better signal noise than the current I-scan method. Compared to standard Z-scan procedures, I-scan techniques have better performance in analyzing samples with non-parallel surfaces and samples that degrade when interacting with high-intensity pulses. From the developed analytical model, a fit expression for the EI-scan is presented. We measured thermal effects produced by high repetition pulse rates and electronic effects produced by third-order optical nonlinear interaction in I-scan techniques. In both cases, this new method demonstrated the increase in sensitivity and the gain in signal-to-noise ratio.
Thermal and nonlinear optical characteristics are evaluated for a novel ionic liquid, BMIOMe.NTf2, by means of the well established thermally managed eclipse Z-scan technique (EZ-scan). Nevertheless, this method still requires samples with good optical quality in order to provide a reasonable signal-noise ratio (SNR) when the material’s nonlinearity is small. Two different procedures where then introduced to improve the SNR against sample linear inhomogeneities and scattering. Both procedures are based in a subtraction of noisy background signals from the nonlinear signal of EZ-scan output. The first is applied to thermal effects and slow sample’s response, based on the perform a subtraction of the initial exposure time from the steady state signal, eliminating the linear noise. In this case, we could verify an increment of SNR from 1:2 to 40:1. The second procedure is related to fast response, e.g., arising from the electronic nonlinear polarizability. This consists in performing two sequential measurement, one with a decade of intensity higher than the first. After performing the subtraction between them, linear background suppression can be verified, with improvement of SNR to 2:1, amount about 10 times the signal value. Performing these procedures, we present a study of properties of ionic liquid BMIOMe.NTf2. This presents a steady cumulative effect of multiple pulse absorption leading to thermal lensing as measured by the thermally managed EZ-scan technique. The photoinduced conductivity effect observed for this ionic liquid is discussed based on the observed photothermal conversion. Also a fast response corresponding to a nonlinear refractive index was also registered when the time evolution is extrapolated for short times.
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