Switching the Cubic Nonlinear Optical Properties of an Electro-, Halo-, and Photochromic Ruthenium Alkynyl Complex Across Six States

摘要

The impending breakdown in Moore's law has prompted the search for molecule-based information-processing components such as molecular switches and logic gates. Bistable molecules that afford states possessing distinct linear optical properties (absorbance, fluorescence) and that can be inter-converted by chemical, redox, magnetic, or photonic stimuli have attracted considerable interest for Boolean logic operations.'21 In principle, molecular computing could exploit ternary or higher-order digit representations, which would permit smaller device components. "Switchable" molecular properties are also of intense interest for sensor applications. Despite this interest, molecules that can exist in more than two stable and independently addressable states, which could be employed for complex and higher-order logic functions, have been explored significantly less than two-state molecules. One potentially very important procedure to exploit molecular switches is to utilize their cubic nonlinear optical (NLO) properties, and in particular their nonlinear absorption.