Glass containing metal nanoparticles (NPs) is a promising candidate for application in nonlinear optical
devices. Hence, transparent sodium borosilicate (NBS) glass incorporated into NiO nanoparticles (NPs)
was fabricated by sol-gel processes plus a controlled atmosphere. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR)
analysis was applied to identify the formation mechanism of the NBS glass network. X-ray powder
diffraction (XRD), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS)
analysis were performed to confirm that spherical and well dispersed NiO NPs did exist in the glass host.
Z-scan technique was used to investigate third-order nonlinear optical properties (NLO) of the asobtained
glass in the femtosecond (fs) and picosecond (ps) regimes. The results revealed that the
glass displayed no nonlinear absorption and moderately strong self-focusing performance in the fs
regime, while it exhibited a reverse saturable absorption (RSA) effect in the ps regime