Optical limiting properties in phthalocyanines with different substituent groups

Photoswitchable nonlinear optical properties of metal complexes

Incorporating photosensitive molecules into the organic/inorganic hybrid materials can contribute to forming photoresponsive systems.

Nonlinear Optical Materials for the Smart Filtering of Optical Radiation

The control of luminous radiation has extremely important implications for modern and future technologies as well as in medicine. In this Review, we detail chemical structures and their relevant photophysical features for various groups of materials, including organic dyes such as metalloporphyrins and metallophthalocyanines (and derivatives), other common organic materials, mixed metal complexes and clusters, fullerenes, dendrimeric nanocomposites, polymeric materials (organic and/or inorganic), inorganic semiconductors, and other nanoscopic materials, utilized or potentially useful for the realization of devices able to filter in a smart way an external radiation. The concept of smart is referred to the characteristic of those materials that are capable to filter the radiation in a dynamic way without the need of an ancillary system for the activation of the required transmission change. In particular, this Review gives emphasis to the nonlinear optical properties of photoactive materials for the function of optical power limiting. All known mechanisms of optical limiting have been analyzed and discussed for the different types of materials.

Ab initio simulation of optical limiting: the case of metal-free phthalocyanine

We present a fully ab initio, nonperturbative description of the optical limiting properties of a metal-free phthalocyanine by simulating the effects of a broadband electric field of increasing intensity. The results confirm reverse saturable absorption as the leading mechanism for optical limiting phenomena in this system and reveal that a number of dipole-forbidden excitations are populated by excited-state absorption at more intense external fields. The excellent agreement with the experimental data supports our approach as a powerful tool to predict optical limiting in view of applications.

Ultrafast third order nonlinear optical properties of water soluble zinc-octacarboxy-phthalocyanine

Synthesis and measurements of third order nonlinear optical (NLO) coefficients of water soluble zinc octacarboxy phthalocyanine (ZnOCPc) are reported here using different laser pulse durations. Nonlinear absorption and refraction behaviour in the nanosecond (ns), picosecond (ps) and femtosecond (fs) time domains were studied in detail. Three-photon absorption was the prevalent mechanism with femtosecond laser excitation whereas strong reverse saturable absorption due to dominant two-photon absorption (TPA) was observed with picosecond and nanosecond excitations. We have evaluated the sign and magnitude of the third order nonlinearity in fs, ps, and ns regimes. We observed large off-resonant second order hyperpolarizability (γ) with ultrafast nonlinear optical response in the femtosecond domain using degenerate four wave mixing (DFWM) technique. We also report the optical limiting characteristics and figure of merit (FOM) of ZnOCPc for optical switching.

Photoresponsive J-aggregation behavior of a novel azobenzene-phthalocyanine dyad and its third-order optical nonlinearity

The photoresponsive J-aggregation behaviors of a novel azobenzene-substituted zinc phthalocyanine (azo-ZnPc dyad) were studied by UV/vis, fluorescence, and (1)H NMR spectroscopy. Upon illumination with 365 nm UV light, the trans-cis isomerization of azobenzene can efficiently reduce the steric hindrance around the peripheral oxygen atom of azo-ZnPc, shortening the possible distance between two phthalocyanine molecules and, consequently, greatly improving the tendency of J-aggregation of azo-ZnPc dyad. The third-order optical nonlinearities of the photoresponsive J-aggregates (before and after illumination) were measured by a Z-scan technique at 532 nm with a pulse duration of 25 ps. The Z-scan spectra revealed that all the samples possessed large positive nonlinear refraction and positive nonlinear absorption, exhibiting a self-focusing effect and reverse saturable absorption, respectively. The second molecular hyperpolarizabilities of the dyad in two conditions were measured to be 3.87 x 10(-30) and 4.82 x 10(-30) esu, respectively. All the results suggest that the azo-ZnPc dyad has potential in the field of nonlinear optics applications.

Hybrid Junctions of Zinc(II) and Magnesium(II) Phthalocyanine with Wide-Band-Gap Semiconductor Nano-oxides: Spectroscopic and Photoelectrochemical Characterization

The optical properties of zinc phthalocyanine (ZnIIPc) and magnesium phthalocyanine (MgIIPc) in DMSO and DMF solutions have been extensively investigated, and the photoelectrochemical behaviors of layer-by-layer hybrid junctions formed of the two metallo(II) phthalocyanines (MIIPcs) and wide-band-gap colloidal semiconductors, namely, ZnO and TiO2 nanocrystals (NCs), have been probed. Different experimental conditions, such as the Pc center metal ion, dye concentration, and solvent identity, were investigated in order to elucidate their effects on the photoelectrochemical performances of the prepared heterojunctions. Finally, thermal treatment of either dye and NC films and control of the NC shape and surface chemistry were also studied and, interestingly, were found to be critical in affecting the performance of photochemical sensitization processes, occurring at the dye/oxide and oxide/solution interfaces.