Optical properties of fullerenes confined in ordered alumina nanotube arrays

In the present work, oxalic amorphous porous anodic alumina membranes (AAM) with highly ordered porous arrays and average nanometric porous dimensions of 70 nm in diameter and 37 microns in depth (nanotubes) were prepared and successfully used as hosting matrix for C 60 and C 70 fullerene compounds. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) studies were performed on the hybrid samples in order to explore surface morphology and optimal insertion of these molecular systems into the AAM environment. The cubic nonlinear optical (NLO) properties, such as nonlinear refraction and absorption of the hybrid samples were studied via the Z-Scan technique in order to evaluate their NLO-performance. Hybrid AAM with fullerene compounds have shown outstanding NLO-activity with positive NLO-refractive coefficients.