Resonant nonlinear optical absorption of silver nanoparticles was studied experimentally via open aperture Z-scan using 130 fs, 400 nm laser pulses. Experimental results show that, at low laser intensity, silver nanoparticles can exhibit saturated absorption. While at high laser intensity, it shows reverse saturated absorption. The saturable absorption is explained in terms of ground state plasmon bleaching, while the reverse saturable absorption is believed to be from two-photon absorption. Saturable optical intensity and two-photon absorption coefficient were obtained to be $1.3\times {10}^{10} \mathrm{W}/{\mathrm{m}}^2$ and $3.3\times {10}^{-10} \mathrm{m}/\mathrm{W}$, respectively. The energy relaxation process of Ag nanoparticles after laser excitation was studied via pump-probe technique at 400 nm. Experimental results demonstrated that energy relaxation included electron-phonon coupling process with time constant ${\mathsf{\tau }}_1=\left(713\pm 50\right) \mathrm{fs}$, and phonon-phonon coupling process with time constant ${\mathsf{\tau }}_2=\left(25.2\pm 3\right) \mathrm{ps}$, respectively.

In order to obtain optical nonlinear materials with high transparency and low propagation loss in the visible and infrared range, noble metal materials in the off-resonant band have become a hot spot in the optical field in recent years. Therefore, the nonlinear absorption characteristics of platinum nanoparticles (PtNPs) with the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) in the ultraviolet band were investigated with multi-wavelength (500–700 $\mathrm{nm}$) nanosecond Z-scan technology. The measurement results showed that the SPR wavelength of PtNPs was far away from the excitation wavelength, but there were still the saturated absorption (SA) and the reverse saturated absorption (RSA) phenomena, and the size of nonlinear absorption was related to the excitation wavelength and the excitation energy. When the excitation wavelength was constant, with the increase in excitation energy, PtNPs converted from SA to RSA. When the excitation energy was constant, with the excitation wavelength approaching SPR, PtNPs also converted from SA to RSA. The SA and RSA phenomena in the off-resonant region were complementary to the systematic study of the nonlinearity of PtNPs.