[Investigation on optical limiting performance in solution of cobalt porphyrin]

The nonlinear optical effects of cobalt porphyrin have been investigated with three CW laser lines of 457.9, 488 and 514.5 nm, respectively. Three curves with peak followed by valley using the single beam z-scan technique were obtained. According to M Sheik-bahae's theory the sample has a negative nonlinear refractive index, that is, there is a thermal self-defocusing effect. Three curves of transmittance show a decrease with the increase in the incident laser power, which means that the sample has reverse saturated absorption property under the three laser wavelengths. It's well known that both thermal self-defocusing effect and reverse saturated absorption can lead to optical limiting. It was found that cobalt porphyrin has the optical limiting effect under those wavelengths, and that the critical value of optical limiting decreases with the decrease in laser wavelength. Furthermore, the effect of optical limiting is very good and the critical value is very low, so it's a new optical limiting material with a great potential application value. For that, it is possible to use the co-operation of both effects from cobalt porphyrin to produce a new kind of optical limiting device.