Design of a low power optical limiter based on a new nanocomposite material incorporating silica-encapsulated phthalocyanine in Nafion

We report on the design of a stable optical limiter in the low laser power regime based on the thermal variation of refractive index in a novel nanocomposite material. The optical material, chloroaluminium-phthalocyanine (ClAlPc), is embedded in SiO2-Nafion nanocomposite membrane (ClSNf) and its thermally induced nonlinear refractive index is characterized by the Z-scan technique with a low power cw He–Ne laser as the source. The value of nonlinear refractive index coefficient, n2, is found to be about 1.11 × 10−11 m2 W−1. The experiment is repeated with the dye doped in pure Nafion membrane (ClNf) and the results are compared with those of ClAlPc doped SiO2–Nafion nanocomposite membrane. The value of n2 is found to be 1.36 × 10−11 m2 W−1 and is larger than that of the ClAlPc embedded SiO2–Nafion nanocomposite membrane. The photostability of the dye-embedded membrane is studied by exposing the sample to cw He–Ne laser and monitoring its fluorescence emission intensity continuously. The samples are found to show large thermal lens effect and demonstrated to be good optical limiters in the low power regime. Whereas the optical properties of dye-doped Nafion appear to be slightly better than those of the dye embedded in silica and incorporated in Nafion, the latter is found to offer excellent photostability.

[1]  Michael Hanack,et al.  Effect of Axial Substitution on the Optical Limiting Properties of Indium Phthalocyanines , 2000 .

[2]  Li,et al.  Dynamic and steady-state behaviors of reverse saturable absorption in metallophthalocyanine. , 1994, Physical review. A, Atomic, molecular, and optical physics.

[3]  Tomás Torres,et al.  Phthalocyanines and related compounds:organic targets for nonlinear optical applications , 1998 .

[4]  Su-Jin Kang,et al.  Highly Efficient Organic/Inorganic Hybrid Nonlinear Optic Materials via Sol−Gel Process: Synthesis, Optical Properties, and Photobleaching for Channel Waveguides , 1999 .

[5]  Tai-Huei Wei,et al.  Signs of nonlinear refraction in chloroaluminum phthalocyanine solution , 1998 .

[6]  T. F. Boggess,et al.  A review of optical limiting mechanisms and devices using organics, fullerenes, semiconductors and other materials , 1993 .

[7]  G. Ma,et al.  Femtosecond nonlinear optical response of metallophthalocyanine films , 2001 .

[8]  F. Gan,et al.  Resonant third-order optical nonlinearity of a new subphthalocyanine , 2000 .

[9]  Y. Murti,et al.  Quantum size effects on the third order optical nonlinearity of CdS quantum dots in Nafion , 2000 .

[10]  N. Tabiryan,et al.  Creation of a hollow laser beam using self-phase modulation in a nematic liquid crystal , 2004, Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, 2004. (CLEO)..

[11]  M. P. Kothiyal,et al.  Nonlinear optical properties of a porphyrin derivative incorporated in Nafion polymer , 2005 .

[12]  Kamjou Mansour,et al.  Organic Optical Limiter with a Strong Nonlinear Absorptive Response , 1996, Science.

[13]  M. Nogami,et al.  Copper phthalocyanine bonding with gel and their optical properties , 2000 .

[14]  E. W. Stryland,et al.  Sensitive Measurement of Optical Nonlinearities Using a Single Beam Special 30th Anniversary Feature , 1990 .

[15]  S. Popov,et al.  Dye photodestruction in a solid-state dye laser with a polymeric gain medium. , 1998, Applied optics.

[16]  James M. Fenton,et al.  Composite silica/Nafion® membranes prepared by tetraethylorthosilicate sol-gel reaction and solution casting for direct methanol fuel cells , 2006 .

[17]  L. Scaffardi,et al.  Photothermal characterization and stability analysis of polymeric dye lasers. , 2000, Applied optics.

[18]  P. Griffiths,et al.  Photoacoustics and Photoacoustic Spectroscopy , 1981 .

[19]  Yuanjing Cui,et al.  Enhanced thermal stability of optical nonlinearity for anilino–silane derived inorganic–organic hybrid thin films , 2007 .

[20]  A. Penzkofer,et al.  Photo-physical characterization of rhodamine 6G in a 2-hydroxyethyl-methacrylate methyl-methacrylate copolymer , 2000 .

[21]  Allen Gersho,et al.  Theory of the photoacoustic effect with solids , 1975 .

[22]  Roberto Sastre,et al.  Laser action from rhodamine 6G-doped poly (2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) matrices with different crosslinking degrees , 1993 .

[23]  G. Hsiue,et al.  A New Class of Organic−Inorganic Sol−Gel Materials for Second-Order Nonlinear Optics , 1997 .

[24]  Ashok K. Kakkar,et al.  Sol−Gel Materials for Second-Order Nonlinear Optics , 2001 .

[25]  Wing-Kee Lee,et al.  Laser induced self-phase modulation in nematic liquid crystals and effects of applied dc electric field , 2006 .

[26]  F. Duarte,et al.  Tunable solid-state lasers incorporating dye-doped, polymer-nanoparticle gain media. , 2003, Optics letters.

[27]  M. Fallahi,et al.  Active organic–inorganic sol gel with high thermal stability for nonlinear optical applications , 2004 .

[28]  E. M. García-Frutos,et al.  Alkynyl substituted phthalocyanine derivatives as targets for optical limiting , 2003 .

[29]  O. Ito,et al.  Excited state properties of monomeric and dimeric axially bridged indium phthalocyanines upon UV-Vis laser irradiation. , 2004, Chemical communications.

[30]  Roberto Sastre,et al.  Solid‐state dye lasers based on polymers incorporating covalently bonded modified rhodamine 6G , 1996 .

[31]  M. P. Kothiyal,et al.  Low-threshold optical power limiting of cw laser illumination based on nonlinear refraction in zinc tetraphenyl porphyrin , 2006 .

[32]  H. Yau,et al.  Two-way two-dimensional pattern transferring upon requesting with BaTiO , 2001 .

[33]  C. Vijayan,et al.  Photoacoustic investigations on self-organization effects in metalloporphyrins on glass substrates , 2007 .

[34]  L. Miranda,et al.  Minimal‐volume photoacoustic cell measurement of thermal diffusivity: Effect of the thermoelastic sample bending , 1987 .

[35]  R. Meucci,et al.  Self-phase modulation in a nematic liquid crystal film induced by a low-power CO2 laser , 2002 .

[36]  B. Peng,et al.  Fluorescence Enhancement and Photostability of Novel Pentamethine Cyanines in Nafion-Na+ Membranes , 2000, Journal of Fluorescence.

[37]  Ravindra Datta,et al.  Synthesis and characterization of Nafion®-MO2 (M = Zr, Si, Ti) nanocomposite membranes for higher temperature PEM fuel cells , 2005 .