Visible-light optical limiting of vanadia–polyvinylpyrrolidone nanofibers

Abstract

In this work, vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) nanoparticles-filled electrospun polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) nanofibers were investigated systematically at various nanofiller weight percentages (8 and 10 wt%) and input intensities to reveal the effective optical limiting feature in the visible spectrum. XRD analysis demonstrated the purity of the produced V2O5 nanoparticles. According to SEM findings, V2O5 nanoparticles were effectively integrated into the PVP nanofibers. Two distinct absorption bands were observed at around 400 and 217 nm. These bands were related to PVP and V2O5 nanoparticles in linear absorption measurements, respectively. Moreover, an increased Urbach energy value was obtained with an increase in V2O5 nanofiller content within PVP. Open-aperture Z-scan measurements were taken at 532 nm considering the band gap energy of the V2O5 nanofillers in PVP composite nanofibers. In 8 wt% V2O5 nanofilled PVP nanofibers, one-photon absorption (OPA) was the main nonlinear absorption (NA) mechanism, and the defect states of the V2O5 nanoparticles had no contribution to NA. On the other hand, sequential two-photon absorption was the main NA mechanism, and the defect states of the nanoparticles caused more efficient NA behavior in 10 wt% V2O5 nanofilled PVP nanofibers. The effective optical limiting behavior was obtained for this composite nanofiber with lower limiting threshold as 1.49 × 10–5 J/cm2. The V2O5 nanofilled PVP nanofibers presented strong potential optical limiters in the visible wavelength region. This was attributed to their high linear transmittance at low input intensities and their robust NA behavior at higher input intensities.