An insight in to microwave induced defects and its impact on nonlinear process in NiO nanostructures under femtosecond and continuous wave laser excitation.

This work demonstrates the impact of microwave (MW) irradiation on third-order nonlinear optical (NLO) processes in chemically deposited NiO nanostructure films. The optical nonlinearity of the NiO nanostructure films was studied using third-harmonic generation (THG) measurements in the pulsed femtosecond laser regime and the Z-scan technique in the continuous wave laser regime. In the ultrafast pulsed regime, THG measurements revealed a significant increase in the THG signal of MW-irradiated NiO nanostructures due to photoexcitation and relaxation processes, resulting from an enhancement in defect concentration. This increase in defect density upon MW irradiation was quantified by PL and XPS studies. Under continuous wave laser irradiation, the Z-scan technique showed an enhanced absorption coefficient of ∼10 m W and a nonlinear refractive index of ∼10 m W. The high NLO values in both pulsed and continuous laser regimes indicate that MW-irradiated NiO nanostructure films hold promise for optoelectronic device applications.