Measurement of Complex DC Kerr Coefficient of Chalcogenide Glasses by Electric Birefringence

Chalcogenide glasses (ChGs) have attracted a great deal of attention due to their excellent optical properties and have been utilized in applications such as supercontinuum light sources, mid-infrared sensing and integrated optics. The research to date has shown that ChGs have a significant third-order nonlinearity under strong light field. However, research on the electro-optical effect of ChGs is still inadequate. Here, we measured the complex DC Kerr coefficient of chalcogenide glass rm Ge_{28}Sb_{12}Se_{60} at lambda =980 nm using the electric birefringence method, and obtained a measurement result of K=-8.92times 10{-13}+i5.74times 10{-18}mathrm {m/V{2}} , as well as the imaginary part of the quadratic electro-optic (QEO) coefficients S{prime prime }_{11}=1.13times 10{-24}mathrm {m{2}/V{2}} and S{prime prime }_{12}=1.77times 10{-24}mathrm {m{2}/V{2}}.