Optical properties of polysiloxane hybrid thin films containing nano-sized Ag–As–Se chalcogenide clusters

Abstract

Chalcogenide glasses are attractive for all-optical signal processing due to their outstanding optical properties, including large optical nonlinearity, a high refractive index and high photosensitivity. In device fabrication, a challenge lies in the difficulty of obtaining thin films with a high stability and good uniformity. In this paper, optical thin films containing nano-sized chalcogenide clusters in polysiloxane matrices are fabricated by a modified plasma deposition process. The optical absorption and luminescence emission properties of the hybrid thin films were characterized by UV-Vis-NIR and fluorescence spectroscopy. Luminescent emission from Ag–As–Se nano-sized clusters was observed for the first time in these nano-hybrid thin films, and the mechanism was discussed.