Synthesis, characterization, and femtosecond third-order optical nonlinearity of Au@Ag core–shell nanoparticles

In this work, the Au@Ag bimetallic core–shell nanostructures were synthesized by a seed-mediated growth. The crystal structure, morphology, elemental composition, atomic concentration, and absorption spectrum of the as-synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by means of X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and ultraviolet–visible linear absorption spectrum, respectively. The femtosecond third-order optical nonlinearities of nanoparticle dispersions were investigated by carrying out the femtosecond-pulsed [Formula: see text]-scan measurements at 800[Formula: see text]nm. The experimental results indicate that Au@Ag core–shell nanoparticles exhibit the positive refractive nonlinearity and negative absorptive nonlinearity. The third-order nonlinear refraction indexes of Au and Au@Ag nanoparticles are measured to be [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]cm2/GW, respectively. The results show that the bimetallic nanoparticle has potential possibility in nonlinear photonic applications.