fully automatic z-scan setup for determiningthe nonlinear optical properties

Z-scan technique has been widely exploited as an accurate and reliable method for determiningthe nonlinear refractive index and nonlinear absorption coefficient. in this technique a sample isscanned along the propagation direction of a focused laser beam while the power transmittedthrough the sample (an aperture) is measured as function of the sample position. we report on afully automatic z-scan setup by which the nonlinear absorption coefficient (refractive index) canbe determined by a one-click home-made labview program. this program handles themovement of the sample mounted on a motorized translation stage, perform the data acquisitionfrom a pico-scope connected to a pair of photodiodes, normalizes the transmittance data,accomplishes the fitting process to extract the required quantities, reports the extracted parametersand finally sends the entire data to origin software for further process such as plotting and drawingthe required figures.