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

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 eff was deduced from the experiments. Monomers which Soret band maximum was situated closer to the experimental wavelength had higher eff. The eff of dimers and trimers were in the same range as for monomers. The highest eff = 5.3 10 cmW was found for a zinc complex of 5,15-A2B2 type porphyrins with 3-methoxyphenyl and trimethylsilyl-ethynyl groups in the meso positions. 1 Corresponding author. Address: School of Chemistry, SFI Tetrapyrrole Laboratory, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland E-mail address: [email protected] (M.O. Senge).