Microwave treated water soluble and amide functionalized single walled carbon
nanotubes have been investigated using femtosecond degenerate pump-probe and
nonlinear transmission experiments. The time resolved differential transmission
using 75 femtosecond pulse with the central wavelength of 790 nm shows a
bi-exponential ultrafast photo-bleaching with time constants of of 160 fs (130
fs) and 920 fs (300 fs) for water soluble (amide functionalized) nanotubes.
Open and closed aperture z-scans show saturation absorption and positive
(negative) nonlinear refraction for water soluble (amide functionalized)
nanotubes. Two photon absorption coefficient,beata ~250 cm/GW (650 cm/GW) and
nonlinear index, gamma ~ 15 cm^2/pW (-30 cm^2/pW) are obtained from the
theoretical fit in the saturation limit to the data for two types of nanotubes.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure
