Femtosecond measurement of third-order optical nonlinearities in Bi_2O_3-B_2O_3-BaO glasses

We present the measurement of the third-order nonlinearity of Bi_2O_3-B_2O_3-BaO glasses using the single Z-scan method with femtosecond laser pulses at 750-850 nm. Both third-order nonlinear refraction γ and two photon absorption coefficient β are investigated. The γ shows an increasing tendency with increasing BaO content, and the largest value is estimated to be 7.2×10^-14 cm^2/W, which is as large as those of chalcogenide glasses. The dependence of β on the normalized photon energy is studied.