Superior optical nonlinearity of an exceptional fluorescent stilbene dye

Strong multiphoton absorption and harmonic generation in organic fluorescent chromophores are, respectively, significant in many fields of research. However, most of fluorescent chromophores fall short of the full potential due to the absence of the combination of such different nonlinear upconversi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: He, Tingchao, Sreejith, Sivaramapanicker, Gao, Yang, Grimsdale, Andrew C., Zhao, Yanli, Lin, Xiaodong, Sun, Handong
Other Authors: School of Materials Science & Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/107195
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/25382
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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Summary:Strong multiphoton absorption and harmonic generation in organic fluorescent chromophores are, respectively, significant in many fields of research. However, most of fluorescent chromophores fall short of the full potential due to the absence of the combination of such different nonlinear upconversion behaviors. Here, we demonstrate that an exceptional fluorescent stilbene dye could exhibit efficient two- and three-photon absorption under the excitation of femtosecond pulses in solution phase. Benefiting from its biocompatibility and strong excited state absorption behavior, in vitro two-photon bioimaging and superior optical limiting have been exploited, respectively. Simultaneously, the chromophore could generate efficient three-photon excited fluorescence and third-harmonic generation (THG) when dispersed into PMMA film, circumventing the limitations of classical fluorescent chromophores. Such chromophore may find application in the production of coherent light sources of higher photon energy. Moreover, the combination of three-photon excited fluorescence and THG can be used in tandem to provide complementary information in biomedical studies.