Elementary tellurium is currently of great interest as an element with potential promise in nano-technology applications because of the recent discovery regarding its three two-dimensional phases and the existence of Weyl nodes around its Femi level. Here, we report on the unique nano-photonic properties of elemental tellurium particles [Te(0)], as harvest from a culture of a tellurium-oxyanion respiring bacteria. The bacterially-formed nano-crystals prove effective in the photonic applications tested compared to the chemically-formed nano-materials, suggesting a unique and environmentally friendly route of synthesis. Nonlinear optical measurements of this material reveal the strong saturable absorption and nonlinear optical extinctions induced by Mie scattering over broad temporal and wavelength ranges. In both cases, Te-nanoparticles exhibit superior optical nonlinearity compared to graphene. We demonstrate that biological tellurium can be used for a variety of photonic applications which include their proof-of-concept for employment as ultrafast mode-lockers and all-optical switches.

This work reports the real-time observation of the interlayer lattice vibrations in bilayer and few-layer ${\mathrm{PtSe}}_2$ by means of the coherent phonon method. The layer-breathing mode and standing wave mode of the interlayer vibrations are found to coexist in such a kind of group-10 transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). The interlayer breathing force constant standing for perpendicular coupling (per effective atom) is derived as 7.5 N/m, 2.5 times larger than that of graphene. The interlayer shearing force constant is comparable to the interlayer breathing force constant, which indicates that ${\mathrm{PtSe}}_2$ has nearly isotropic interlayer coupling. The low-frequency Raman spectroscopy elucidates the polarization behavior of the layer-breathing mode that is assigned to have ${\mathrm{A}}_{1\mathrm{g}}$ symmetry. The standing wave mode shows redshift with the increasing number of layers, which successfully determines the out-of-plane sound velocity of ${\mathrm{PtSe}}_2$ experimentally. Our results manifest that the coherent phonon method is a good tool to uncover the interlayer lattice vibrations, beyond the conventional Raman spectroscopy limit. The strong interlayer interaction in group-10 TMDCs reveals their promising potential in high-frequency ($\sim \text{terahertz}$) micro-mechanical resonators.

In this work, we investigated the nonlinear optical properties of monolayer MoS₂ and WS₂ modulated by defect engineering via chemical treatment. The results demonstrate that the two-photon luminescence (TPL) and two-photon absorption (TPA) coefficient were remarkably improved after the repair of sulfur vacancies for both monolayer MoS₂ and WS₂. After the chemical treatment, the nonradiative relaxation path dominant in pristine monolayer MoS₂ is significantly alleviated, resulting in enhanced TPL. Our work affords an effective way to tailor the nonlinear absorption, luminescence and relaxation properties of sulfur-based two-dimensional metal dichalcogenides by defect engineering.

Questions hovering over the modulation of bandgap size and excitonic effect on nonlinear absorption in two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have restricted their application in micro/nano optical modulator, optical switching, and beam shaping devices. Here, degenerate two-photon absorption (TPA) in the near-infrared region was studied experimentally in mechanically exfoliated ${\mathrm{MoS}}_2$ from single layer to multilayer. The layer-dependent TPA coefficients were significantly modulated by the detuning of the excitonic dark state ($2\mathrm{p}$). The shift of the quasiparticle bandgap and the decreasing of exciton binding energy with layers were deduced, combined with the non-hydrogen model of excitons in TMDCs and the scaling rule of semiconductors. Our work clearly demonstrates the layer modulation of nonlinear absorption in TMDCs and provides support for layer-dependent nonlinear optical devices, such as optical limiters and optical switches.

Nonlinear scattering properties of carbon black suspensions (CBS) are studied using nanosecond photoacoustic (PA) and optical z-scan techniques. When the laser is operated in multi-pulse mode, no nonlinear behavior is observed in PAZ-scans. However, in the single-pulse mode, we observed the nonlinear scattering in both PAZ and optical z- scans. Our results are in agreement with the well-known bleaching effect in CBS and demonstrate the importance of pulse repetition frequency for studying nonlinear scattering using photoacoustics. The effective nonlinear extinction coefficients of CBS were determined, and we found that PAZ-scan data are more sensitive and offer information on higher nonlinearities.