Self-assembled organic nanostructures and nonlinear optical properties of heteroleptic corrole–phthalocyanine europium triple-decker complexes

Abstract Two heteroleptic corrole–phthalocyanine europium triple-decker complexes were fabricated into organic nanostructures by the standard phase-transfer method. The investigated compounds are represented by Eu 2 (Pc) 2 [Cor(ClPh) 3 ] ( 1 ) and Eu 2 [Pc(OC 8 H 17 ) 8 ] 2 [Cor(ClPh) 3 ] ( 2 ), where Pc represents the dianion of phthalocyanine and Cor(ClPh) 3 the trianion of 5,10,15-tri(4-chlorophenyl)corrole. Both compounds 1 and 2 show typical electronic absorption spectra for a non-aggregated molecular structure in chloroform or toluene. However, in methanol compound 1 self-assembled into belt-like nanostructures while compound 2 , which possesses long OC 8 H 17 alkoxy side chains, self-assembled into large scale sheet-like nanostructures. The third-order nonlinear optical properties of both triple-decker compounds were also investigated in toluene by the Z-scan technique and characterized as showing nonlinear reverse saturation absorption and self-defocusing behavior. A third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility, χ (3) , of 3.18 × 10 −10 and 3.35 × 10 −10  esu was obtained for 1 and 2 , respectively, thus indicating the potential application of these compounds in the field of optical devices.