Femtosecond nonlinear optical property of a TeO2–ZnO–Na2O glass and its application in time-resolved three-dimensional imaging

Compared with bismuth glasses and chalcogenide glasses, tellurite glasses have a wider transparency window. Especially, these glasses with excellent transparency in visible region could offer a larger dynamic range for the time-resolved simultaneous three-dimensional imaging based on the optical Kerr gate (OKG). We investigated the ultrafast nonlinear optical properties of a TeO2–ZnO–Na2O glass using a femtosecond optical Kerr gate at wavelength of 800 nm. The nonlinear refraction n2 and the ultrafast nonlinear response time of the tellurite glass were estimated to be 4.56×10–15 cm2/W and less than 200 fs, respectively. We also demonstrated the time-resolved simultaneous three-dimensional imaging using the tellurite glass as the Kerr medium, which indicated that tellurite glasses may also be good candidates as the Kerr media for the time-resolved imaging based on the OKG.