The substituent effect on CW laser beam self-action manifestation under UV irradiation of azo-azomethine PMMA composites thin films
Valeriia M. Ovdenko, Dmytro O. Komarenko, Serhii O. Lisniak, Andrii V. Ronkovych, Volodymyr Multian, V. Ya. Gayvoronsky
Abstract
We report synthesis and study of E→Z→E photoswitching transformations of methyl-substituted azo-aldehyde and six novel corresponding azo-azomethines containing electron withdrawing/donating substituents in para-position to – CHN– bond, being analyzed by UV–Vis and 1H NMR spectroscopy techniques. Impact of donor/acceptor substituent nature on isomerization kinetics was studied in THF solutions by light activation at 390 nm. We obtained high optical quality of PMMA thin films doped with mentioned dyes. It was characterized with both angularly resolved optical elastic scattering data and nonlinear refractive/absorptive optical responses analysis via CW laser beam self-action effects manifestation at wavelength 532 nm. Pronounced self-focusing effect contribution was shown for electron donating substituents (-CH3, -OCH3) and self-defocusing one for electron withdrawing -NO2 group. UV irradiation at 254 nm provides switching from self-defocusing to self-focusing mode of -NO2 substituted dye-doped film with refractive nonlinear optical response efficiency Re(χ(3)) ≈10−2 esu on background of moderate photoinduced absorption effects manifestation.