Facile synthesis of Cu2O nanoparticles using pulsed laser ablation method for optoelectronic applications

Abstract

Cu2O nanoparticles were synthesized by pulsed laser ablation (Nd:YAG laser, 7 ns, and 1064 nm) of Cu plate immersed in liquid media from ultra-pure water, and its particle sizes were varied by changing the repetition rates between pulses to be useful for optoelectronic applications. The prepared colloidal suspension nanoparticles were characterized based on different physical process as the diffraction of X-ray laser beam, the electronic transition of UV–visible light source, or plasma emission from laser-matter interaction by the techniques of X-ray diffraction, UV–visible spectroscopy, and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, respectively. These techniques showed decreasing in the average particle sizes as increasing in the repetition rate of a pulsed laser. After that, the optical nonlinearity of the prepared samples was investigated by the Z-scan technique to inform the nonlinear parameters as 2nd order nonlinear absorption coefficient (β), 3rd order nonlinear susceptibility (X3), and the nonlinear reflective index (n2), optical limiting property and its proposed mechanism. The prepared nanostructured materials of Cu2O materials have a good optical limiter material with a limiting threshold value around 0.7 GW/cm2 and a damage threshold around 1.4 GW/cm2. These results confirmed that the saturable absorption process was carried by two-photon absorption, especially when the repetition rate of the used pulsed laser during the laser ablation process.