Two Photon Absorption in Chromophore Doped Solid Matrices

Over the past decades organic materials have shown an important potential for applications in the field of nonlinear optics. Two-photon absorbing materials can be optically addressed in three dimensions of space, which make them unique for many new applications, including 3D displays, optical memories, bio-sensors, etc. Fluorescent organic chromophores can be synthesized with structures especially optimized for this nonlinear optical property. Yet, for some applications, they have to be incorporated in solid state matrices. We especially investigate hybrid organic/inorganic doped matrices synthesized by solgel process. However , the linear transmission for such molecules is often significantly less than unity. Two-photon absorption (TPA) offers the advantage of very high transmission at low incident intensity, while being sensitive to high intensity laser pulses. Our aim is to record a 3D layered pattern of optical memory inside the sample by the use of the picosecond pulsed ND3+:YAG laser at 532nm, or 1064nm.