Simultaneous Growth and Doping Engineering of Plasmonic ZnO Nanocrystals in Solid Transparent Matrix

Abstract Simultaneous growth and doping engineering for nanocrystals (NCs) grown in the solid phase can be of high significance for the semiconductor industry while controlling this process has been a tremendous challenge as it involves the reaction of multiple species with different mobilities in the otherwise rigid network structure. Here, through combined theoretical calculations and experiments, it is verified that ZnO NCs can be controllably doped and precipitated in oxide glasses based on a judiciously designed glass matrix and dopant. Strong optical manifestations of the resultant glass‐ceramics (GCs) incorporating precipitated N‐type ZnO:Sb NCs with high free electron concentrations are observed. Especially, the growth of ZnO:Sb NCs results in a strong and controllable resonant absorption by localized surface plasmon resonance, contributing to ultrafast near‐infrared (NIR) nonlinear optical absorption. The ultrafast saturable absorption behavior of the ZnO:Sb doped GCs is leveraged for the development of thin absorption switches, enabling the generation of stable mode‐locked pulses in a fiber laser. These findings not only underscore the potential of plasmonic nanocrystalline glass for nonlinear photonics but also highlight the possibility for applications beyond photonics by engineering the doping and growth of semiconductor nanostructures inside a solid matrix.