Study of the Nonlinear Optical Properties of Ag/CdTe Composites

CdTe films, Ag nanoparticles, and Ag/CdTe composites are successfully fabricated on substrates by means of the physical vapor deposition process. The morphological structure, crystal growth and bandgap of the samples are specifically characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffractometer, and UV-vis spectrophotometer. Picosecond (ps) Z-scan technology is used to investigate the nonlinear optical (NLO) properties of the composites under 532 nm. The results indicate that all samples exhibit saturated absorption nonlinear absorption properties and self-dispersion nonlinear refraction properties. In addition, Ag nanoparticles can improve the NLO properties of Ag/CdTe composites, and this improvement is more obvious with the increase of Ag power. The results show that the excellent properties of the Ag/CdTe composites are expected to make them an ideal material for use in the photoelectric field. Herein, nanofilms with monolayer and bilayer structure are prepared by magnetron sputtering method, respectively, and properties of the samples are measured using various characterization instruments, and it is found that the bilayer structure performs better than the monolayer, and this research rule suggests that the nanofilms with this bilayer structure have better prospects in the field of nonlinear optical devices.image (c) 2023 WILEY-VCH GmbH