Chromophore Designs

Dalton, L. Nonlinear Optical Polymeric Materials From Chromophore Design to Commercial Applications. Vol. 158, pp. 1-86. 

The next logical step toward chromophore design was to conduct a spectral survey of commercially available organic compounds in order to learn some general structure-property relationships for minimization of the residual absorbance. As an easily measured figure of merit, the ratio between the minimum and maximum molar absorptivities has been used. In many cases, this ratio (expressed in percent, or more conveniently, as the minimum molar absorptivity per 100,000 L/mol-cm of maximum absorbance) is 5-10% (5000-10,000 per 100,000). (The lower the number the better the dye.) An improved figure of merit would take into account the area under the absorption curve as well as the location of the transparent window relative to the peak in the absorption. This is tantamount to calculating the dispersion from the absorption spectrum, which was too complex for this type of survey. 

Nonlinear Optical Polymeric Materials from Chromophore Design to Commercial Applications... 

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