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Updated: Aug 1, 2025

Synthesis and Characterization of Multi-Modal Phase-Change Porphyrin Droplets
Published on: October 15, 2021
Outstanding Quadratic to Septic Optical Nonlinearity at Dipolar Alkynylmetal-Porphyrin Hybrids
Huan Wang1,2, Mahbod Morshedi1, Mahesh S Kodikara3
1Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
Abstract:
Porphyrins are important macrocycles with applications in several areas including therapy, catalysis, and sensing. Strong nonlinear optical (NLO) responses are the key to fully exploiting the potential of these biocompatible molecules. We herein report that certain metal-alkynyl donor/nitro acceptor-functionalized porphyrins are attractive candidates for NLO applications. We show that specific examples exhibit record quadratic optical nonlinearity, exceptional two-photon absorption, and outstanding three-photon absorption, and we report the first porphyrins that exhibit four-photon absorption. The two-, three-, and four-photon absorption maxima are found at the corresponding multiples of linear absorption bands that time-dependent density functional theory assigns as admixtures of porphyrin-localized π*←π and donor-porphyrin to porphyrin-acceptor charge-transfer transitions.
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