Abstract

Optical limiters are devices that strongly attenuate intense optical beam while exhibiting high transmittance for low intensity ambient light levels. General requirements for a material to be a good optical limiter are high pulse energy suppression, broad bandwidth, wide temporal response, operation in fast optics, and high ambient transmission. Molecules with large two-photon absorption cross sections that form strongly absorbing excited states have potential for good optical limiting response. Recently we reported¹ an approach to obtaining relatively broadband optical limiting response through the use of the bis-donor stilbenes, 1 and 2, whose structures are shown in Fig. 1.

© 1999 Optical Society of America