The lifetime of the triplet excited state and modulation characteristics of all-optical switching in phenoxy-phthalocyanines liquid.

We present our experimental results on the measurements of excited state dynamics in 2, 9, 16, 23-phenoxy-phthalocyanine (Pc1) and 2, 9, 16, 23-phenoxy-phthalocyanine-zinc (Pc2) using the pump-probe experiment. The results show that the lifetime of the first triplet excited state of the Pc2 longer than Pc1. The lifetimes of the triplet excited state for Pc2 and Pc1 are 12.8 μs and 10.1 μs at the same intensity, respectively. Moreover, analysis of modulation characteristics of all-optical switching (A-OS) shows that the stronger the light intensity of the pump light is, the smaller the normalized transmittance is, and the lower the A-OS response time is. The consequences of such short lifetimes are also discussed in view of the strong A-OS properties of these molecules.