Optical limiting of flexible gold nanorods/organosilicon hybrid materials

Due to the potential application of gold nanorods (GNRs) in tunable optical limiting materials, it is significant to develop GNRs/polymer hybrid materials. In this paper, GNRs were prepared using a seed-mediated growth method and coated with silica shells through hydrolysis of tetraethoxysilane under alkaline condition. The silica coated GNRs were then introduced into room-temperature vulcanized silicone rubber. Optical limiting property of the GNRs/silicone nanocomposites was investigated. The results indicated the GNRs doped silicone rubber sheets possessed good optical limiting performance and the optical limiting behavior was mainly attributed to the nonlinear absorption. The GNRs doped silicone materials would be good candidates for practical optical limiting applications.