Correlation studies on structurally diverse porphyrin monomers, dimers and trimers and their nonlinear optical responses

Abstract

An investigation of the nonlinear absorption of a wide range of structurally diverse porphyrin monomers, bisporphyrins and trisporphyrins, using open Z-scan technique with 6 ns pulsed laser operating at 532 nm was carried out. Using the theory of reverse saturable absorption, the intensity dependent nonlinear absorption coefficient β eff was deduced from the experiments. Monomers which Soret band maximum was situated closer to the experimental wavelength had higher β eff . The β eff of dimers and trimers were in the same range as for monomers. The highest β eff = 5.3 × 10 −8 cm W −1 was found for a zinc complex of 5,15-A 2B 2 type porphyrins with 3-methoxyphenyl and trimethylsilyl-ethynyl groups in the meso positions.