Third-order optical nonlinearities of carbon nanotubes in the femtosecond regime

Abstract

Femtosecond pump–probe experiments have been carried out on an ensemble of single-wall carbon nanotubes deposited on a glass substrate. Measurements of transient changes of transmission and reflection provide an estimate of the real and imaginary parts of the second-order hyperpolarizability of carbon nanotubes. These values are compared with previous measurements and are discussed in the light of a simple model of the optical nonlinearities near the optical band-gap.