Synthesis of heteroatom Doped-Carbon dot graphene oxide nanocomposites and investigation of nonlinear optical properties

•1. A series of heteroatom doped-carbon dot graphene oxide (HD-CDGO) nanocomposites were prepared by one-step electrochemical exfoliation methods.•2. The nonlinear absorption coefficient of HD-CDGO is 9.3 times higher than that of CDGO.•3. The enhanced optical nonlinearity is mainly due to the heteroatom doping.•4. The HD-CDGO/PMMA composites could withstand lasers in further practical application. A series of carbon dot graphene oxide (CDGO) nanocomposites and heteroatom doped-carbon dot graphene oxide (HD-CDGO) nanocomposites were prepared by one-step electrochemical exfoliation methods, where heteroatom represents P, N and S atoms. TEM, FT-IR and XPS were performed to confirm the structure of HD-CDGO. The Z-scan tests were used to investigate the nonlinear optical (NLO) properties of HD-CDGO, and the estimation of the band gap was performed using UV–vis and Tauc plots. The results demonstrate that the energy gaps of the prepared HD-CDGO were reduced, and the NLO properties were improved compared with those of CDGO. The nonlinear absorption coefficient (βeff) of S-CDGO is 9.3 times higher than that of CDGO, and the imaginary part of the third-order nonlinear susceptibility (Im χ(3)) increases from 23 × 10-12 esu to 213 × 10-12 esu. Furthermore, different sulfur element concentration doped CDGO (Sx-CDGO, x = 0.05, 0.10, 0.20, 0.40, S0.10-CDGO equals S-CDGO) were prepared, and the energy gap of Sx-CDGO decreases from 4.5 eV to 2.5 eV as the surface sulfur atomic concentration of Sx-CDGO increases from 0.6 % to 1.8 %, the βeff value of Sx-CDGO increases from 15 × 10-10 to 65 × 10-10 m/W. Moreover, HD-CDGO/polymethyl methacrylate (HD-CDGO/PMMA) composites were prepared for practical applications. S-CDGO/PMMA composites exhibit the best NLO property, with the initial threshold value and limiting threshold of 0.05 and 0.40 J cm−2, respectively, and the minimum transmittance of 21 %. Our work provides a promising design strategy to synthesize high-performance optical limiting (OL) materials.