Abstract

The development of high power pulsed laser sources that can emit light from the UV to the IR has motivated the design of optical devices that limit the output energy at high input, while maintaining high linear transmittance for low inputs over much of the visible spectrum.¹ Among all the studied molecules and systems for optical limiting, carbon-black suspension (CBS) is still one of the best broadband optical limiting materials to date.² Strong scattering due to plasma formation and/or bubble generation has been established to be the main nonlinear mechanism for limiting in CBS. The carbon particles strongly absorb the radiation causing them to vaporize in the focal volume, producing scattering centers that strongly attenuate the transmitted light. Because the carbon particles are destroyed in this process,

© 2002 Optical Society of America