Third order nonlinear optical properties of metal phthalocyanines with butoxy and decyloxy substituents

The two dimensional pi-conjugated electron system in phthalocyanines allows the tailoring of chemical and physical properties over a very wide range of structural modifications by incorporating many different metal atoms into the ring and by substituting various functional groups at peripheral sites. In this study, a series of 1,4,8,11,15,18,22,25-octa-butoxy/decyloxy metallophthalocyanines containing various central metal atoms such as zinc, copper, palladium, cobolt and nickel were synthesized. They have significantly altered properties compared to the unsubstituted phthalocyanines. Spin-coated films of these materials were fabricated and characterized using third harmonic generation process at the wavelength of 1907 nm. The preliminary results of the effects of metal atoms and peripheral substituents on the third order nonlinearity are presented.