Wavelength dependence of optical nonlinearity of terpyridine-based Zn(II)-coordinated rigid linear polymers

• Main Authors: He, Tingchao, Rajwar, Deepa, Ma, Lin, Wang, Yue, Bang Lim, Zheng, Grimsdale, Andrew C., Sun, Handong
• Other Authors: School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/95059; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/9212
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

We present the wavelength dependent optical nonlinearities of two terpyridine-based Zn(II)-coordinated rigid linear polymers. It is found that the polymers exhibit large saturable absorption behavior under resonant excitation, while strong and tunable 2-photon absorption behaviors are observed in the biological window of 700–900 nm. Interestingly, Z-scan results reveal that, the polymers also exhibit large positive nonlinear refraction at 1300 nm in the solutions even with a low concentration, accompanied by small 3-photon absorption. Our results suggest that the polymers will be promising in various photonic applications, such as mode locking, 2-photon biological imaging, and all-optical switching.