Indigo carmine dye-polymer nanocomposite films for optical limiting applications

Abstract

Nanocomposite films of an organic dye-polymer (Indigo Carmine-PVA) system were fabricated and their optical limiting behaviour was investigated under excitation with 532 nm laser pulses of 5 ns temporal width using the open aperture Z-scan technique. The samples displayed optical limiting behavior under the experimental conditions. The Atomic Force Microscopic (AFM) analysis of the surface topography revealed homogeneous distribution of nanoclustered aggregates grown within the polymer matrix and an average roughness of ~2.02 nm for the surface. The estimated values of the effective nonlinear absorption coefficient, βeff (~10-7-10-8 cm/W) marked up to the highest reported ones in literature in the nanosecond regime. The results indicate that these nanocomposite films are potential materials for optical limiting devices used for the protection of human eyes and other delicate optical sensors from laser induced optical damage.