Optical limiting effect in a two-photon absorption dye doped solid matrix

Abstract

We recently reported a new lasing dye, trans-4-[p-(N-ethyl-N-hydroxylethylamino)styryl]-N-methylpyridinium tetraphenylborate (ASPT), which has also been shown to possess a strong two-photon absorption (TPA) and subsequent frequency upconversion fluorescence behavior when excited with near infrared laser radiation. Based on the TPA mechanism, a highly efficient optical limiting performance has been demonstrated in a 2 cm long ASPT-doped epoxy rod pumped with 1.06 μm Q-switched laser pulses at 50–250 MW/cm2 intensity levels. The measured nonlinear absorption coefficient reached 6 cm/GW for the tested sample of dopant concentration d0=4×10−3 M/L. The molecular TPA cross section of ASPT in the epoxy matrix is estimated as σ2=2.5×10−18 cm4/GW or σ2′=4.7×10−46 cm4/photon/s, respectively. Two-photon pumped cavity lasing is also observed in an ASPT-doped polymer rod.

Nonradiative Deactivation of Excited Hemicyanines Studied with Submolecular Spatial Resolution by Time-Resolved Surface Second Harmonic Generation at Liquid−Liquid Interfaces

“…These compounds have been used for numerous applications, 6 such as fluorescent probes of neuron membranes, 7 laser dyes, 8 and non nonlinear optical material. 9 Their fluorescence quantum yield and lifetime have been shown to increase substantially with the viscosity of the environment because of an efficient nonradiative deactivation channel of the S 1 state involving intramolecular coordinate(s) with large-amplitude motion. 10 As shown in Chart 1, torsion around four different bonds could be responsible for the nonradiative deactivation and several studies have been devoted to the identification of the relevant one.…”

3MLCT excited states in Ru(II) complexes: Reactivity and related two-photon absorption applications in the near-infrared spectral range

“…The development of two-photon absorbing chromophores has become in the past decade [18] a growing research area whose progress is leading to a wide range of applications [19] such as three-dimensional optical data storage [20], 3D-fluorescence imaging [21], photochemical delivery of biological messenger [22], photodynamic cancer therapy [23], microfabrication [24] and Optical Power Limiting (OPL) [25]. TPA provides several advantages over currently used methods, because high-energy photophysical properties are activated by low-energy photons (in the near infrared) which allows greater material or tissue penetration than affordable with visible or UV-light; furthermore, the quadratic dependence on the intensity allows an enhanced control and a finer spatial resolution in various applications such as microfabrication and fluorescence imaging [26].…”

Microwave synthesis and fluorescence properties of homo- and heterodimeric monomethine cyanine dyes TOTO and their precursors

“…They found also applications in genetic studies and modern diagnostic methods (1)(2)(3), for examples, in the case of the polymerase chain reaction for cancer diagnostics at early stages of the disease; for diagnostics of infection diseases (1)(2)(3)(4), including AIDS; for the identification of DNA samples in criminal law (16,17); flow cytometry (18), DNA sequencing (19,20) and quantification of nucleic acids in capillary and gel electrophoresis (21)(22)(23). Besides, they are commonly applied to lasers (24), electronics (25), nonlinear optics (26) and solar cells (27).…”