Molecules with weak ground-state absorption that form strongly absorbing excited states can be used in optical limiters, which can protect sensors or human eyes from optical damage. Phthalocyanine complexes bearing heavy atoms or paramagnetic groups or in solvents containing heavy atoms show optical limiting enhanced by excited triplet-state absorption. A nonhomogeneous distribution of indium tetra( tert -butyl)phthalocyanine chloride along the beam path substantially enhances the excited-state absorption, yielding an optical limiter with a linear transmittance of 0.70 that can attenuate 8-nanosecond, 532-nanometer laser pulses by factors of up to 540.

Donor-acceptor polyenes of various lengths, and that combine aromatic electron-donating moieties with powerful heterocyclic electron-withdrawing terminal groups, have been synthesized and characterized as efficient nonlinear optical (NLO) chromophores. Their linear and nonlinear optical properties have been investigated, and variations in these properties have been related to ground-state polarization (dipole p ) and structure. In particular, unprecedented quadratic hyperpolarizabilities (p) have been achieved (up to p(0) =I500 x 10-30esu) by reduction of the bondlength alternation (BLA) in the polyenic chain. In each series of homologous com-

Buckminsterfullerene (C60), the newly discovered spherical allotrope of carbon, has precipitated a flurry of recent research endeavors.1 A severe limitation to this research is the difficulty in producing gram quantities of Cm free of the higher molecular Company. W.A.S. thanks NASA and the American Vacuum Society for scholarships. We thank Dr. Nick Griffith of the

Syntheses of a series of conjugated donor-acceptor chromophores, based on a strongly electron-withdrawing heterocyclic acceptor, have led to compounds with large second-order optical nonlinearities. Incorporation of one of these chromophores into polycarbonate at 20 percent weight loading yielded, after poling at 150 volts per micrometer, a polymer film with an electro-optic coefficient, r 33 , of 55 picometers per volt at 1.313 micrometers. This value is roughly twice that of lithium niobate. A variant of one of these chromophores exhibited improved thermal stability as needed for use in polymers with higher glass transition temperatures. The chromophore was soluble in common organic solvents, had a scalar product of the dipole moment, μ, and the molecular first hyperpolarizability, β (corrected for dispersion), of roughly 5000 × 10 −48 electrostatic units, and showed less than 10 percent decomposition after heating for 20 minutes in air and at 200°C in an inert organic solvent.

No abstract