Optical Limiting in Fullerene Materials

Fullerene chemistry is booming, but how the chemical reactions affect fullerene's materials properties has seldom been studied. We have investigated optical limiting behavior of a series of fullerene derivatives, polymers, and glasses and have observed the following structure-property relationships for optical limiting in the fullerene materials: (i) The fullerene polymers with aromatic and chlorine moieties, i.e., C 60 -containing polycarbonate (C 60 -PC), polystyrene (C 60 - PS), and poly(vinyl chloride) (C 60 -PVC), limit the 8-ns pulses of 532-nm laser light more effectively than does the parent C 60 ; (ii) the fullerene polymers with carbonyl groups, i.e., C 60 - containing CR-39 (C 60 -CR-39) and poly(methyl methacrylate), (C 60 -PMMA), do not enhance C 60 's limiting power; and (iii) the aminated fullerene derivatives, i.e., H x C 60 (NHR) x [R = -(CH 2 CH 2 O) 2 H ( 1 ), x = 11; -(CH 2 ) 6 OH ( 2 ), x = 7; - cyclo -C 6 H 11 ( 3 ), x = 11; -(CH 2 ) 3 Si(OC 2 H 5 ) 3 ( 4 ), x = 4], and their sol-gel glasses, i.e., 1–3/SiO 2 (physical blending) and 4 -SiO 2 (chemical bonding), show complex limiting responses, with 4 (-SiO 2 ) performing consistently better than 1 -3(/SiO 2 ). The fullerene glasses are optically stable and their optical limiting properties remainunchanged after being subjected to continuous attack by the strong laser pulses for ca. 1 h.