Synthesis, photophysical and nonlinear optical properties of microwave synthesized 4-tetra and octa-substituted lead phthalocyanines

This work presents the photophysical and nonlinear optical behaviour of newly synthesized complexes: 2,(3)-tetrakis(4-benzyloxyphenoxyphthalocyaninato) lead (5a) and 2,3-octakis(4-benzyloxyphenoxyphthalocyaninato) lead (6a). The nonlinear optical behaviour of complexes 5a and 6a are compared with those of 2,(3)-tetraphenoxyphthalocyaninato lead (5b), 2,(3)-tetrakis(4-t-butylphenoxyphthalocyaninato) lead (5c), 2,3-octaphenoxyphthalocyaninato lead (6b) and 2,3-octakis(4-t-butylphenoxyphthalocyaninato) lead (6c). The synthesis of 5a and 6a was performed using microwave irradiation. Photophysical properties were studied for these complexes in dimethylsulfoxide, dimethylformamide, toluene, tetrahydrofuran and chloroform. The fluorescence spectra were different from excitation spectra due to demetallation upon excitation. High triplet quantum yields ranging from 0.80 to 0.86 (in DMSO, DMF and toluene) and low triplet lifetimes (20–50 μs in DMSO, and <10 μs in the rest of the solvents) were observed due to the presence of heavy atom. Nonlinear optical properties were studied in dimethylsulfoxide. The optical limiting threshold intensity (Ilim) for the PbPc derivatives were calculated and ranged from 2.1 to 6.6 W/cm2.

Graphical abstractThe ratio of the absorption cross sections of the ground and excited states was larger than unity for lead phthalocyanine complexes containing benzyloxyphenoxy substituents, confirming that the complexes are good optical limiters.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide