Intensity dependence of Z-scan in semiconductor-doped glasses for separation of third and fifth order contributions in the below band gap region

The Limitations of the Z-scan method in separating the third order and fifth order nonlinearities in dilute nonlinear systems like semiconductor-doped glasses are discussed. By simulating various experimental situations, we show that rather sensitive detection is required in such cases to separate the two contributions. The earlier Z-scan data on semiconductor doped glasses is shown to be consistent with a dominantly fifth order nonlinearity. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.