Observation of asymmetric spectrum broadening induced by silver nanoparticles in a heavy-metal oxide glass

¹ Max-Born-Institut for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy - Max-Born-Str. 2a, D-12489 Berlin, Germany, EU
² Institut fur Physik, Universitat Rostock - Universitatsplatz 3, D-18055 Rostock, Germany, EU
³ Jerusalem College of Engineering - Ramat Beit HaKerem, POB 3566, Jerusalem, 91035, Israel
⁴ LAVIE, Department of Chemistry, UFSCar - Rodovia Washington Luiz Km 235, 13565-905, São Carlos, SP, Brazil
⁵ Department of Physical Electronics, School of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv 69978, Israel

^a radik@eng.tau.ac.il

Received: 21 December 2010
Accepted: 30 March 2011

Abstract

We demonstrate experimentally and support by a theoretical analysis an effect of asymmetric spectrum broadening, which results from doping of silver nanoparticles into a heavy-glass matrix, 90(0.5WO₃-0.3SbPO₄-0.2PbO)-10AgCl. The strong dispersion of the effective nonlinear coefficient of the composite significantly influences the spectral broadening via the self-phase modulation, and leads to a blue upshift of the spectrum. Further extension of the spectrum towards shorter wavelengths is suppressed by a growing loss caused by the plasmon resonance in the silver particles. The red-edge spectral broadening is dominated by the stimulated Raman scattering.