Nonlinear optical and all-optical switching studies of palladium(II) complex

•Optical-quality palladium complex doped PMMA films can be obtained by the spin-coating method.•Complex exhibit good optical power limiting property in the nanosecond regime.•We report the all-optical switching behavior of the complex using the pump-probe technique.•Estimated the probe modulation at different pump intensities.

Palladium complex with Schiff-base (PdL) was synthesized and composite films were fabricated on glass substrates by the spin coating technique. Z-scan and degenerate four wave mixing (DFWM) studies on the complex were performed using Q-switched Nd:YAG 7 ns laser pulses at 532 nm to reveal the third-order nonlinear optical (NLO) parameters. The third-order NLO susceptibility (χ(3)) and second-order hyperpolarizability (γh) in film form are estimated to be of the order of 10−11 and 10−30 esu respectively. Large nonlinear absorption (NLA) due to reverse-saturable absorption (RSA) in the complex exhibits good optical power limiting (OPL) performance. All-optical switching (AOS) experiments were performed using the pump-probe method. The Z-scan investigations reveal that the switching is caused by excited-state absorption (ESA) of the He-Ne laser.

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