Study of optical properties and effective three-photon absorption in Bi-doped ZnO nanoparticles

In this paper we report the linear and nonlinear optical properties of Bi-doped ZnO nanoparticles. Bi-doped ZnO nanoparticles were prepared through the wet chemical method at room temperature. Optical absorption measurements show that the exciton peaks are situated at 272 and 368 nm, which are attributed to the n=2 and n=1 exciton states, respectively. Transmission electron microscopy measurements reveal the size and shape of the particles and energy dispersive X-ray measurements confirm the doping of Bi in ZnO. Steady state photoluminescence measurements show that the emission is composed of five peaks. Open aperture z-scan measurements done at 532 nm using 5 ns, 300 μJ laser pulses reveal nonlinear absorption which arises from an effective three-photon absorption process.