Abstract

Since 2002 we have developed a new class of artificial photonic nanomaterials, the so-called photopolymerizable nanoparticle-polymer composites (NPCs) [1], in which multi-dimensional photonic lattice structures can be formed by holographic assembly of nanoparticles [2]. We proposed and demonstrated versatile applications of NPC volume holograms and gratings in photonics and neutron optics [3, 4]. We also investigated the nonlinear optical properties of NPCs dispersed with semiconductor CdSe quantum dots (QDs) [5]. In this work we report on the fabrication of NPCs at CdSe QD concentrations as high as 6.8 vol.%, more than 7 times higher than those reported previously [5], and on the nonlinear optical properties that include the cascaded fifth-order optical nonlinearity [6].

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