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Published September 13, 1996 | public
Journal Article

Organic Optical Limiter with a Strong Nonlinear Absorptive Response

Abstract

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.

Additional Information

© 1996 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received 25 April 1996; accepted 25 July 1996. This work was performed in part at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as part of its Center for Space Microelectronics Technology and was supported by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, Innovative Science and Technology Office, and the U.S. Air Force Wright Laboratory through an agreement with NASA. Work at the Beckman Institute was supported by the Office of Naval Research, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Office of Naval Research through the Center for Advanced Multifunctional Molecular Assemblies and Polymers, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. P.V.B. is the recipient of a postdoctoral fellowship from the James Irvine Foundation.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 19, 2023