Strong optical limiting properties of Ormosil gel glasses doped with silver nano-particles

A series of silver nanoparticle (Ag NP) Ormosil glasses were fabricated with a sol–gel method. Ag NPs disperse uniformly in sol–gel matrices, proven by scanning electron microscopy and mapping analysis. The as-prepared glasses have high transmittance in the visible and near infrared region. Ag NP Ormosil glasses exhibit excellent optical limiting (OL) properties with a broad band (532–1064 nm), low OL FON (32 mJ cm−2@532 nm and 101 mJ cm−2@1064 nm) and high damage thresholds (over 10 J cm−2@532 nm and 30 J cm−2@1064 nm) through Z-scan and nonlinear transmission methods. Z-scan measurements show that the OL property comes from nonlinear absorption and nonlinear scattering. The good nonlinear optical performance has thus endowed the Ag NP Ormosil glasses with a potential application in OL devices.