Photochromism allows for reversible light-induced conversion of a molecular species into a different form with significantly altered optical properties. One promising compound that excels with high fatigue resistance and shows its photochromic functionality both in solution and in molecular solid films is the diarylethene derivative CMTE. Here we present a comprehensive study of its photophysical properties with density-functional theory based methods and benchmark the results against higher-level quantum-chemical approaches and experiments. In addition to static properties such as optical absorption, perceived color, and refractive index, we also investigate reaction dynamics based on non-adiabatic ab initio molecular dynamics. This gives detailed insight into the molecules' ultrafast reaction dynamics and enables us to extract reaction time scales and quantum yields for the observed electrocyclic reaction following photoexcitation.
Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a versatile candidate for photonic devices due to its highly efficient optical emission. However, for pumping of ZnO photonic devices UV-sources are required. Here, we investigate the alternative usage of widely available pulsed near-infrared (NIR)-sources and compare the efficiency of linear and nonlinear excitation processes. We found that bulk ZnO, ZnO thin films grown by molecular beam epitaxy, and ZnO/SiO2 microdisk devices exhibit strong nonlinear response when excited with NIR pulses (λ ≈ 1060 nm). In addition, we show that the ZnO/SiO2 microdisks exhibit sharp whispering gallery modes over the blue-yellow part of the visible spectrum for both excitation conditions and high Q-factors up to Q = 4700. The results demonstrate that nonlinear excitation is an efficient way to pump ZnO photonic devices.
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