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.