<title>Preparation and optical properties of amorphous silica doped with porphins (TCPP)</title>

Abstract

ABSTRACT Tetrakis(4-carboxyphenyl)porphine (TCPP), which is well known as a photochemical hole burning(PHB) dye, wasincorporated in amorphous silica materials(a-Si02) by a sol-gel process with using tetramethoxysilane(TMOS) andaminopropyltriethoxysilane(APTES). With using APTES as precursor of silica gel, TCPP was cross-linked to a-Si02matrix through aminopropyl group of APTES. The cross-linkage of TCPP and APTES was confirmed by the FT-IRmeasurement. The TCPP incorporated in a-Si02 matrices showed activity in PHB. In the TCPP cross-linked a-Si02,properties of photochemical hole, such as hole width, quantum efficiency and irreversible broadening under cycleannealing experiment, were improved. A burnt hole at 3.6K was observed after cycle annealing experiment up to 80K inthe TCPP cross-linked a-Si02.Keywords: TCPP, sol-gel process, photochemical hole burning(PHB), aminopropyltriethoxysilane(APTES), FT-IR,cross-link, hole width, quantum efficiency, irreversible broadening 1. INTRODUCTION