Creation of Organic-Metal Hybridized Nanocrystals Toward Nonlinear Optics Applications

Organic nanocrystals are occupied in an intermediate state between single molecule and the corresponding molecular crystal in a bulk state, which are fabricated in common by using the reprecipitation method. The crystal size is in the range of several tens nanometer to sub-micrometer. In particular, linear optical properties such as excitonic absorption spectrum and fluorescence emission spectrum are evidently dependent on crystal size, owing to thermally soften nanocrystal lattice with increasing specific surface area. Core–shell-type hybridization between organic nanocrystals and novel metal nanoparticles is of too much interest in current material science. In this chapter, creation of polydiacetylene nanocrystal fibers hybridized with gold nanoparticles will be introduced in details toward nonlinear optics applications. Polydiacetylene is typically one-dimensional π-conjugated polymer, and one of the most promising organic nonlinear optical materials. It is expected that nonlinear optical properties would be enhanced because of peculiar optoelectronic interaction between exciton in polydiacetylene and localized surface plasmon resonance effect in gold nanoparticles.