Synthesis of one-dimensional calcium silicate nanowires as effective broadband optical limiters.

Synthesis of inorganic nanostructures with novel morphologies has attracted increasing attention from chemistry and materials science researchers. Calcium silicate nanowires (CaSiO NWs) were successfully prepared using a water-ethanol mixture solution system via hydrothermal synthesis. The resulting CaSiO NWs were uniform, with widths averaging 10-20 nm and lengths up to several micrometers. The synthesized silicate NWs were highly crystalline and mainly constituted of SiO tetrahedra. The nanosecond optical limiting (OL) effects were characterized using an open-aperture (OA) Z-scan technique with 4 ns laser pulses at 532 and 1064 nm. These CaSiO NWs exhibited excellent OL performance, superior to that of carbon nanotubes, which are a benchmark optical limiter. Input-fluence-dependent scattering measurements suggested that nonlinear scattering played an important role in the observed OL behavior in the CaSiO NWs at 532 and 1064 nm. This study provides new insights into the silicate nanowires, which will help in the design and preparation of 1D materials with improved nonlinear optical properties.