New optical materials

It is safe to say that any conventional spectrophotometric and colorimetric analysis can be performed in an optical sensing format. That makes the optical sensors probably the most universal type of chemical sensors. Miniaturization of optical components and rapid advances in the development of new optical materials and hardware support this fast-growing area of chemical sensing. 

Nanocomposites involving noble metals nanoparticles and assisted by natural polysaccharide have been fabricated. The plasmon resonance absorption due to nanoparticles has been shown by the method of electronic spectroscopy. Regularities of their formation with target optical characteristics to design new optical materials have been established. 

This work was supported in part by the Program Femtosecond physics and new optical materials of the Russian Academy of Sciences and by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grants 07-02-00057,07-02-12033 and 08-02-12143)... 

Uhlmann D.R., Boulton J.M., Teowee G. New optical materials by wet chemical processing. J. Non-Cryst. Solids 1996 196 26-36... 

Sol-gel processing is becoming an important technique for the preparation of new optical materials because this method offers unique opportunities for the synthesis of optical materials in the form of thin Aims, fibers, fine powders and even monoliths. In this chapter, the sol-gel processing for the optical hole-burning materials will be described. 

Figure 1. Schematic representation of our strategy for creating new optical materials, (a) a novel polymer that changes its index of refmction when tti ered by a UV light signal is synthesized and then (b) combined with another polymer to form a superlattice.

Ionic liquid anion nature also has an influence on the properties of Eu-containing luminescent materials [42]. The l-methyl-3-tetradecyl imidazolium ionic liquid with N(CN)2, CF3SO3, and N(CF3S02)2 anions doped with 1 % of [EuCl2Phen2(H20)2] C1DH20 complex was prepared, and the influence of the IL anion nature on luminescent spectra and lifetimes of europium complex was investigated. Therefore the presented Eu-containing ILs can be considered as potential perspective components for new optical materials and devices. 

As already mentioned, the organic dye rhodamine 6G was one of the first luminescent species studied, encapsulated in silica obtained by the SGM [4], It was also mentioned that one important observation at that time was related to the enhanced stability the organic molecule experienced in the xerogel host. Indeed, that first paper opened the road for a multitude of new optical materials involving organic functionalities. Sensors, dye lasers (visible and NIR), photochromic, nonlinear optics, and photovoltaic devices are some of the possible applications for these dyes containing OIH [11,92,93]. 

Reisfeld, R., Saraidarov, T., Panzer, G., Levchenko, V., and Gaft, M. (2011) New optical material europium EDTA complex in polyvinyl pyrrolidone films with fluorescence enhanced by silver plasmons. Opt Mater., 34, 351-355. 

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