Trimeric metallo-phthalocyanines with good performances for nanosecond optical limiting in solution

Optical limiting (OL) performances of two trimeric metallo-phthalocyanines namely, 2,4,6-tris[2-oxa-9,10,16,17,23,24-hexa(hexylthio) phthalocyaninato M(II)]-s-triazine (M = Zn for compound ZnPc and Cu for compound CuPc) were investigated by using the Z-scan technique. The measurements were performed using collimated 4 ns pulses generated from a frequency-doubled Nd:YAG laser at 532 nm wavelength. OL parameters of the ratio of the excited state to ground state absorption cross-sections κ, the effective non-linear absorption coefficient βeff, the linear absorption coefficient α0, limiting threshold Fth and the saturation density or energy density Fsat values were determined for the investigated compounds. The results indicated that both compounds exhibited good OL performances. ZnPc shows slightly better OL parameters than that of CuPc.