Engineering the optical and mechanical properties exhibited by a titanium dioxide thin film with gold nanoparticles

Thermo-optic and electrostrictive contributions to the nonlinear refractive index were observed in a titanium dioxide thin film with embedded gold nanoparticles. A sol–gel method was employed for preparing thin solid film samples. The nanosecond nonlinear optical properties and the Young’s modulus parameter were changed by shifting the optical absorption band associated with the localized surface plasmon of resonance of the gold nanoparticles with platinum. The third order nonlinear optical phenomena exhibited by the sample were induced by the second harmonic of a Nd-YAG laser with 532 nm wavelength; the nonlinear optical measurements were obtained by monitoring the transmittance and the amplitude modification for the vectorial components of the electric fields in a two-wave interaction. Optical evaluations were confirmed considering a straightforward measurement of the change in the refractive index of the sample when the sample was located in a Michelson interferometer.