Investigation of an optical limiting mechanism in carbon nanotube suspension

To find out the optical limiting mechanism of carbon nanotube suspension,the scattered and transmitted energy for the carbon nanotube suspension,as a function of incident fluence,is measured.The angular scattering profile at different incident fluences for 10 ns,1064nm linearly polarized light parallel to the scattering plane is obtained and pump-probe time-resolved experiments also performed.Based on Mie theory,the scattering energy distribution and scattering cross-section varying with carbon vapour bubble radius is calculated,which qualitatively agree with experiment results.The results indicate that the optical limiting mechanism of carbon nanotube suspension probably originated from the nonlinear scattering of carbon vapour bubble formed by light Absorption.