Two-photon absorption of photochromic diarylethene and its application to rewritable holographic recording

Abstract

A new photochromic diarylethene (1a) has been prepared. Both its photochromic behavior and nonlinear optical properties are investigated. 1a shows excellent ring-opening (l_max = 386 nm) and ring-closing (l_max = 652 nm) photoisomerization with UV-Vis light irradiation. With 800 nm femtosecond pulsed laser irradiation, 1a shows two-photon-induced photoisomerization, and a two-photon absorption cross-section (s = 423×10⁵⁰ cm⁴·s per photon) is obtained by using two-photon induced fluorescence method. The applications of two-photon absorption of 1a to holographic recording has been also investigated. A two-photon induced micro-pattern is recorded on the diarylethene 1a-PMMA film with an femtosecond laser of 800 nm, 100 fs, 1 kHz, 50 mW.

Keywords

diarylethene / photoisomerization / two-photon absorption / holographic recording / rewritablity