Efficient optical Kerr gating property of fluorotellurite glass

Abstract

We investigated the ultrafast optical Kerr effect of the fluorotellurite glass (Ft glass), the nonlinear response time of which was measured to be less than 230fs, while the nonlinear refractive index was estimated to be 9.62×10−16cm2/W. Using optical Kerr gate (OKG) technique with Ft glass as Kerr medium, we obtained narrow-bandwidth and symmetric gated spectra from a supercontinuum (SC) generated by a femtosecond laser. Experimental results indicated that Ft glass was a good candidate for an OKG medium due to its fast response time, large nonlinearity, and high transparency.