Investigation of Optical Limiting Mechanism in Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes

We report an investigation into the mechanism responsible for the optical limiting behavior in multiwalled carbon nanotubes. We conducted energy-dependent transmission measurements, picosecond time-resolved pump-probe, and nonlinear scattering experiments at 532-nm wavelength on multiwalled carbon nanotube suspension. For comparison, C60-toluene solution and carbon black suspension were also studied in the same experiments. The similarities that we observed between the multiwalled carbon nanotubes and carbon black suspension suggest that nonlinear scattering, which is known to be responsible for the limiting action in carbon black suspension, should play an important role in the limiting effect in multiwalled carbon nanotubes.