Nonlinear optical and optical limiting properties of polymeric carboxyl phthalocyanine coordinated with rare earth atom

The nonlinear optical properties of the polymeric carboxyl phthalocyanine with lanthanum (LaPPc.COOH), holmium (HoPPc.COOH) and ytterbium (YbPPc.COOH) as centric atom, were investigated by the Z-scan method using a picosecond 532 nm laser. The synthesized phthalocyanines had steric polymeric structure and dissolved well in aqueous solution. The nonlinear optical response of them was attributed to the reverse saturable absorption and self-focus refraction. The nonlinear absorption properties decreased with the centric atoms changing from La, Ho to Yb. The largest second-order hyperpolarizability and optical limiting response threshold of LaPPc.COOH were 3.89 × 10−29 esu and 0.32 J/cm2, respectively. The reverse saturable absorption was explained by a three level mode of singlet excited state under the picosecond irradiation. The result indicates the steric structure presented additive stability of these polymeric phthalocyanines for their application as potential optical limiting materials.