Synthesis of one-dimensional calcium silicate nanowires as effective broadband optical limiters.

Abstract

Synthesis of inorganic nanostructures with novel morphologies has attracted increasing attention from chemistry and materials science researchers. Calcium silicate nanowires (CaSiO3 NWs) were successfully prepared using a water-ethanol mixture solution system via hydrothermal synthesis. The resulting CaSiO3 NWs were uniform, with widths averaging 10-20nm and lengths up to several micrometers. The synthesized silicate NWs were highly crystalline and mainly constituted of SiO4 tetrahedra. The nanosecond optical limiting (OL) effects were characterized using an open-aperture (OA) Z-scan technique with 4ns laser pulses at 532 and 1064nm. These CaSiO3 NWs exhibited excellent OL performance, superior to that of carbon nanotubes, which are a benchmark optical limiter. Input-fluence-dependent scattering measurements suggested that nonlinear scattering played an important role in the observed OL behavior in the CaSiO3 NWs at 532 and 1064nm. This study provides new insights into the silicate nanowires, which will help in the design and preparation of 1D materials with improved nonlinear optical properties.