Observation of two-photon absorption at UV radiation in ZnS quantum dots

Research studies on quantum dots (QDs) of semiconductor materials are of potential interest in present days having promising applications in different optoelectronic devices. Among other materials, ZnS is a direct bandgap semiconductor material having a wide bandgap of 3.6 eV for its cubic phase at room temperature and it shows excellent optical properties. However, here the nonlinear optical (NLO) properties of chemically synthesized ZnS QDs of average size of ∼1.5 nm have been reported which are measured by using an indigenously developed Z-scan technique. The pump radiation is 355 nm which is the third harmonic of the Q-switched Nd:YAG laser radiation having pulsed duration of 10 ns with the repetition rate of 10 Hz. The measured experimental data have been analysed by using analytical models and two-photon absorption coefficients of the ZnS QDs at 355 nm have been extracted.