Concentration dependence of the optical limiting and nonlinear light scattering in aqueous suspensions of detonation nanodiamond clusters

• Optical limiting (OL) is observed for nanodiamond (ND) clusters suspended in water.
• ND clusters were suspended in water with mass concentrations of 3–0.01%.
• For all concentrations the nonlinear scattering strongly contributes to the OL.
• There is an optimum ND concentration that corresponds to the maximum OL performance.
• This optimum ND concentration essentially depends on the input intensity.

Optical limiting (OL) is observed for detonation nanodiamond clusters (ND) suspended in water with mass concentrations of 3–0.01%. By using nanosecond Z-scan measurements at 1064 nm we demonstrate that the nonlinear light scattering strongly contributes to the OL in a wide range of ND concentrations. Moreover we show that the ratio of the nonlinear and linear extinction that can be seen as figure of merit for an optical limiter is a non-monotonous function of the ND concentration. Our analysis reveals that the concentration that corresponds to the optimum OL performance essentially depends on the incident intensity.