3.2.1. Z-Scan Technique
Measuring the Kerr coefficient of a material is needed in order to design and fabricate nonlinear optical devices. The Z-scan method, introduced in the 1990s [
104] is an elegant method to measure the third-order optical Kerr nonlinearity of a material. This technique involves open-aperture (OA) and closed-aperture (CA) measurements, which can be used to measure the third-order nonlinear absorption and nonlinear refraction, respectively. CA Z-scan method is widely used to measure the nonlinear refractive index (Kerr coefficient) of an optical material. The valley-peak and peak-valley transmission curves are the typical results of the CA measurement, as shown in
Figure 2a. When the nonlinear material has a positive nonlinear refractive index (
n2 > 0), self-focusing will occur which results in the valley-peak transmission curve. The peak-valley CA curve arises from de-focusing and occurs with a negative nonlinear refractive index (
n2 < 0).
Figure 2b shows a typical Z-scan setup [
62]. To measure the ultrafast nonlinear response, a femtosecond pulsed laser is used to excite the samples. A half-wave plate combined with a linear polarizer can be employed to control the power of the incident light. The beam is focused onto the sample with a lens or an objective. During the measurements, samples are oriented perpendicular to the beam axis and translated along the Z axis with a linear motorized stage. For the measurements of small micrometer sized samples, a high-definition charge-coupled-device imaging system can be employed to align the light beam to the target area. Two PDs are employed to detect the transmitted light power for the signal and reference arms.
For the CA Z-scan method, the normalized transmittance can be written as [
62,
104]:
where
,
with
the beam waist radius and
k the wave vector.
represents the on-axis phase shift at the focus, is defined as [
62,
104]:
In equation (5),
, with
L denoting the sample length and
the linear absorption coefficient,
k is the wave vector which is defined by
is the laser irradiance intensity with in the sample [
104]. Based on the measured Z-scan curves, one can derive the Kerr coefficient
n2 with the fitting equations.
Graphene is the first 2D material to have been discovered, and its optical nonlinearities have been widely studied using Z-scan measurements and other methods.
Figure 3a shows the CA Z-scan signal of a graphene film with an excitation laser wavelength at 1550 nm [
105]. A peak-valley configuration can be observed, indicating a negative Kerr nonlinearity. The measured Kerr coefficient
n2 of graphene is as large as 10
-11 m
2/W which is about 6 orders of magnitude larger than bulk Si, demonstrating the strong potential of 2D materials for nonlinear optical devices. A laser peak intensity dependent
n2 has also been observed (
Figure 3b), providing a potential method for modulating its nonlinear properties.
Figure 3c,d show the CA curves of CH
3NH
3PbI
3 perovskite [
106] and Ti
3C
2T
x MXene films [
57] measured at a wavelength of 1550 nm, where a positive and negative Kerr nonlinearity were observed, respectively. The different response of these two materials forms the basis of their applications in different functional devices. For example, a negative Kerr nonlinearity can be used to self-compress ultrashort pulses in the presence of positive group-velocity dispersion while the materials with positive nonlinearity are promising for achieving a net parametric modulational instability gain under abnormal dispersion conditions.
2D van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures offers many new features and possibilities beyond what a single material can provide, and there has been significant activity in this field [
108,
109]. Recently, the optical nonlinear response of 2D heterostructures has also been investigated via the Z-scan method.
Figure 3e plots the CA curve of a MoS
2/BP/MoS
2 heterostructure at different laser intensities [
107]. A negative Kerr nonlinearity at the telecommunications wavelength of 1550 nm can be observed. The strong Kerr nonlinearity of graphene/Bi
2Te
3 at the same wavelength was also demonstrated recently [
110]. By fitting the experimental data, a large
n2 of ~ 2 × 10
-12 m
2/W was obtained, which is highly attractive for all-optical modulators and switches.
One of the unique features of GO is its tunable optical and electrical properties through laser reduction, which is particularly attractive for nonlinear optical applications. To investigate laser tunable optical nonlinearities, an in-situ third-order Kerr nonlinearity measurment for GO films has been conducted with the Z-scan method [
60].
Figure 4a–d show the CA signal of GO films at different laser intensities. At low intensity, GO exhibits a positive Kerr nonlinearity with a valley-peak CA configuration. With increasing the laser intensity, GO reduction occurs and the positive nonlinearity finally transitions into a negative nonlinearity at an intensity of 4.63 GW/cm
2, at which point GO completely reduces to graphene. In addition to the ability to laser tune optical nonlinearities in GO, the measured Kerr coefficient
n2 of GO is as large as 4.5 × 10
-14 m
2/W at 1550 nm, which is four orders of magnitude higher than single crystalline silicon. These properties render GO a promising candidate for nonlinear applications in the telecommunications band.
3.2.2. THG Measurement
In addition to Z-scan method, another technique that can be used to directly characterize the third-order optical nonlinearity of a material is THG measurement. As introduced in
Section 3.1, THG is a fundamental third-order optical nonlinear process in which three photons at the same frequency (
ω1) excite the nonlinear media to generate new signal (
ω = 3
ω1). Measuring the THG of a material provides a direct method to characterize its third-order optical nonlinearity.
Figure 5 shows a typical setup for THG measurements [
111] where a fundamental (ω, red) pulse is incident normally on the sample. The third harmonic (3ω, green) is detected in the reflected direction by a CCD camera, a spectrometer, or a photodiode connected to a lock-in amplifier.
To quantitatively analyze the THG effect, an equation for the THG intensity (
, can be introduced [
112]:
where
and
are the complex refractive indexes at the fundamental and harmonic wavelengths, respectively, α is the absorption coefficient at the THG wavelength, Δ
k is the phase mismatch between the fundamental and harmonic waves, and
is the third-order susceptibility of the sample. By fitting the THG data with Equation (6), an effective third order susceptibility
χ(3) value can be obtained.
Strong THG in graphene was demonstrated by Kumar et al. [
111]
Figure 6a-i shows the THG of monolayer graphene as a function of incident laser powers. The incident laser was 1720.4 nm. By fitting the experimental data, a large
ꭓ(3) of ~ 0.4 × 10
-16 m
2/V
2 was obtained. In addition, a thickness dependent THG signal can be observed (
Figure 6a-ii), while
ꭓ(3) remains constant wth increasing graphene layer number. Recently, Jiang et al. [
113] investigated the gate-tuneable THG of graphene.
Figure 6b-ii shows the THG signal as a function of chemical potential generated at different wavelengths. When tuning the doping level of graphene, an enhanced THG and
ꭓ(3) were observed.
THG in other 2D materials, such as TMDCs and BP, have also been investigated recently. Rosa et al. [
114] characterized THG in mechanically exfoliated WSe
2 flakes at an excitation wavelength of 1560 nm. By measuring the THG for different numbers of layers, a clear thickness-dependent behaviour was observed, as shown in
Figure 7a-I,a-iii. The
ꭓ(3) of WSe
2 was measured to be in the order of 10
-19 m
2/V
2, which is comparable to other TMD [
115] and BP [
116]. Youngblood et al. [
116] reported THG in BP by using an ultrafast near-IR laser obtaining a
ꭓ(3) of ~ 1.4 × 10
-19 m
2/V
2. In addition, an anisotropic THG were demonstrated, as shown in
Figure 7(b-iii). Nonlinear optical properties of few-layer GaTe were also studied by characterizing the THG at a pump wavelength of 1560 nm [
117]. The THG intensity was found to be sensitive to the number of GaTe layers (
Figure 7c-iii). They obtained a large
ꭓ(3) of ~ 2 × 10
-16 m
2/V
2.
3.2.3. Hybrid Device Characterization
Z-scan and THG measurements are usually employed to characterize the material property directly. While on the one hand, the properties of a material form the basis for applications to electronic and optical devices, the reverse is true–device performance can also provide key information about the material properties. A typical example is field effect transistors (FETs) which have been one of the main techniques to evaluate the electrical properties of 2D materials. Optical structures and waveguides can also be exploited to characterize the material optical properties. By integrating 2D materials with photonic cavities and optical waveguides, the third-order optical nonlinearity of atomically thin 2D material has been characterized by measuring the nonlinear optical responses of the hybrid devices, such as FWM [
78], SPM [
99], and supercontinuum generation [
118]. This method also enables the investigation of the layer-dependence of the nonlinear properties, which is challenging for conventional Z-scan methods due to the weak response of ultrathin 2D films.
For the hybird device characterization, the data analysis is performed in the following steps. First, by fitting the measured FWM or SPM spectra of corresponding hybrid devices, one can obtain the nonlinear parameters (
γ) for the bare and hybrid waveguides. Then based on the fit
γ of the hybrid waveguides, the Kerr coefficient (
n2) of the coated 2D films can be extracted using [
120,
121,
122]:
where
λ is the central wavelength,
D is the integral of the optical fields over the material regions,
Sz is the time-averaged Poynting vector calculated using mode solving software,
n0 (
x,
y) and
n2 (
x,
y) are the refractive index profiles calculated over the waveguide cross section and the Kerr coefficient of the different material regions, respectively.
FWM is a fundamental third-order nonlinear optical process that has been widely used for all optical signal generation and processing, including wavelength conversion [
98,
123,
124,
125,
126,
127,
128,
129,
130,
131,
132,
133], optical frequency comb generation [
134,
135,
136,
137,
138,
139,
140,
141,
142,
143,
144,
145], optical sampling [
146,
147], quantum entanglement [
29,
30,
148,
149,
150,
151,
152,
153,
154,
155,
156,
157], and many other processes. The conversion efficiency (CE) of FWM is mainly determined by the third-order Kerr nonlinearity of the material that makes of the device. Therefore, it is useful to obtain the Kerr coefficient of a material by measuring its FWM CE.
Gu et al. [
118] fabricated a silicon nanocavity covered with graphene (
Figure 8a-i) and measured the FWM CE with different pump and signal detuning wavelengths around 1550 nm, as shown in
Figure 8a-ii,a-iii. From the CE data, a
n2 of ~ 4.8 × 10
-17 m
2/W was obtained for a graphene integrated with a silicon cavity. The layer-dependence of the Kerr nonlinearity of GO films has been investigated by measuring the FWM performance of GO hybrid devices based on doped-silica, silicon, and SiN optical waveguides and microring resonators (MRRs) [
78,
158,
159,
160,
161,
162,
163,
164,
165,
166,
167,
168,
169,
170].
Figure 8b-i shows a fabricated doped-silica MRR covered with patterned GO films [
78]. By fitting the CE to theory for a device with different GO thicknesses, the layer thickness dependence of
n2 of GO at 1550 nm was characterized, as shown in
Figure 8b-iii. Recently, electrically tuneable optical nonlinearities of graphene at 1550 nm was also demonstrated by measuring FWM in graphene-SiN waveguides at different gate voltages, as shown in
Figure 8c [
119].
SPM is another third-order nonlinear optical process that can be used to characterize the optical nonlinearity of 2D and other novel materials [
171,
172,
173,
174,
175,
176,
177,
178,
179,
180,
181,
182,
183,
184,
185,
186]. Feng et al. [
160] studied the Kerr nonlinearities of graphene/Si hybrid waveguides with enhanced SPM (
Figure 9a). The
n2 of the Graphene on Si hybrid waveguides was measured to be ~ 2 × 10
-17 m
2/W, which is three times larger than that of the Si waveguide. Even though the intrinsic
n2 of graphene is orders of magnitude larger than bulk silicon, the monolayer thickness of the graphene film results in a very low optical mode overlap, which yields only a factor of three improvement in the effective nonlinearity of the waveguide. For GO, on the other hand, comparatively larger film thicknesses are achievable which result in an overall much higher waveguide nonlinearity. Optical nonlinearities of GO films have also been investigated by SPM experiments. Zhang et al. [
99] demonstrated the enhanced optical nonlinearity of silicon nanowires integrated with 2D GO Films (
Figure 9b-i).
Figure 9b-ii shows the experimental SPM spectra of the devices with different numbers of GO layers, where increased spectral broadening can be observed in GO coated silicon nanowires. The layer dependent Kerr
n2 coefficient of GO was also characterized by fitting the spectra to theory, as shown in
Figure 9b-iii. In addition to graphene and GO, the optical Kerr nonlinearity of MoS
2 monolay1er films was also characterized by analysing the SPM of MoS
2-silicon waveguides [
171]. The experiments demonstrated a large Kerr coefficient
n2 of ~ 1.1 × 10
-16 m
2/W for a monolayer of MoS
2 in the telecommunications band.