Two-photon absorption and nonlinear refraction of birefringent mesoporous silicon films

The self-action of light in birefringent mesoporous silicon films is studied using picosecond laser pulses. Two mechanisms of self-action of light in mesoporous silicon are found. One of them manifests itself at laser intensities below 3 MW cm^-2 and tends to saturation. The other dominates at intensities above 10 MW cm^-2. The former is related to the resonant excitation of electronic states on the surface of silicon nanocrystals, whereas the latter is due to the local fields in the nanocomposite. For the aforementioned ranges of the laser intensity, the cubic nonlinear susceptibility of the films exceeds that of single-crystal silicon by six and four orders of magnitude, respectively, and the figure of merit for the films exceeds that for single-crystal silicon by an order of magnitude.