Ultrafast carrier dynamics of Cu₂O thin film induced by two-photon excitation

Cuprous oxide (Cu₂O) has attracted plenty of attention for potential nonlinear photonic applications due to its superior third-order nonlinear optical property such as two-photon absorption. In this paper, we investigated the two-photon excitation induced carrier dynamics of a Cu₂O thin film prepared by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering, using the femtosecond transient absorption experiments. Biexponential dynamics including an ultrafast carrier scattering (< 1 ps) followed by a carrier recombination (> 50 ps) were observed. The time constant of carrier scattering under two-photon excitation is larger than that under one-photon excitation, due to the different transition selection rules and smaller absorption coefficient of the two-photon excitation.