Ultrafast third-order optical nonlinearity of several sandwich-type phthalocyaninato and porphyrinato europium complexes

The third-order optical nonlinearity of two sandwich-type phthalocyaninato and porphyrinato europium complexes, including double- and triple-deckers EuPc(OC₅H₁₁)₈₂, Eu₂(Pc)(TPP)₂, Pc=phthalocyanine, TPP=5, 10, 15, 20- tetraphenylporphyrinate), was investigated by using the femtosecond time-resolved optical Kerr gate method at 830 nm wavelength. Their second-order hyperpolarizability is estimated to be 0.74×10^-30esu and 3.0×10^-30esu respectively. This exhibits an evident enhancement in comparison with 0.47×10^-30esu for one-decker Eu(Pc)(acac) (acac=acetylacetonate), which is also measured under the same conditions. The enhancement is attributed to the introduction of lanthanide metal to the large \pi -conjugated system, intermacrocycle interaction and two-photon resonance etc.