A Novel Material for Spectral Hole-Burning Applications: Photochemical Properties of meso-Diphenyl-Tribenzonaphtoporphine

Abstract

We have studied the photochemical properties of meso-diphenyl-tribenzonaphtoporphine (P2TriBNP) as a material exhibiting spectral hole-burning (SHB) that are important for its use in optical data storage and imaging spectroscopy. We measured the Debye-Waller factor, the hole-burning efficiency, the inhomogeneous and homogeneous line width, the back reaction rates of the photoproduct, and the dipole moment differences between ground and excited state of this compound at liquid helium temperatures. Poly(viny1 butyral) was used as the matrix. The hole-burning efficiency is higher by orders of magnitude compared with commonly used systems like chlorin (3.5 k 1.5% vs. 0.03%) which brings about the possibility to perform storage experiments with much lower light levels and on shorter time scales than before.