Near-infrared absorbing organic materials

Wang, Z. Y.; Zhang, J.; Wu, X.; Birau, Maria; Yu, Guomin; Yu, Hongan; Qi, Y.; Desjardins, Pierre; Meng, X.; Gao, J. P.; Todd, E.; Song, N.; Bai, Y.; Beaudin, A. M. R.; LeClair, Gaetan

doi:10.1351/pac200476071435

Pure Appl. Chem., 2004, Vol. 76, No. 7-8, pp. 1435-1443

http://dx.doi.org/10.1351/pac200476071435

Near-infrared absorbing organic materials

Z. Y. Wang, J. Zhang, X. Wu, Maria Birau, Guomin Yu, Hongan Yu, Y. Qi, Pierre Desjardins, X. Meng, J. P. Gao, E. Todd, N. Song, Y. Bai, A. M. R. Beaudin and Gaetan LeClair

Department of Chemistry, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa K1S 5B6, Canada

Abstract: Organic solids and polymers that absorb in the near-infrared (NIR) region (1000–2000 nm) represent a class of emerging materials and show a great potential for use in photonics and telecommunications. The radical anions of stacked aromatic imides, fused phorphyrin arrays, polythiophenes, sandwich-type lanthanide bisphthalocyanines, semiquinones, and mixed-valence dinuclear metal complexes are a few known examples of NIR-absorbing organic materials. Most of these NIR-absorbing materials are also electro- chemically active or electrochromic (EC). This brief review covers several types of NIR-absorbing organic materials and discusses their potential for applications in EC variable optical attenuators (VOAs).