Investigation of Reverse-Saturable Absorption in Brominated Porphyrins

To develop more efficient materials to be used in optical limiters, we have synthesized a series of metal-containing brominated tetraphenylporphyrin (MOBP) reverse-saturable absorber (RSA) dyes. ZnOBP was the highest efficiency RSA chromophore. Moreover, ZnOBP had nonlinear absorption that compared well to state-of-the-art phthalocyanine RSA dyes. The results suggest that other factors (ring nonplanarity, halogenation) influence limiting behavior as well as insertion of heavy metal atoms into the ring.