Microcrystals of polydiacetylene derivatives and their linear and nonlinear optical properties

Organic microcrystals which are expected to have interesting and fascinating physical properties were fabricated by a reprecipitation method as aqueous dispersions. Many kinds of organic compounds have been microcrystallized by this convenient method. The size control has been extensively investigated for a polydiacetylene and succeeded in the range from several tens of nanometers to several micrometers by adjusting the temperature and concentration. Linear optical properties of these well-defined polydiacetylene microcrystals have been investigated and interesting size and temperature dependences of excitonic absorption are demonstrated. Nonlinear optical (NLO) properties of polydiacetylene microcrystals have also been evaluated by means of a Z-scan technique, and an extremely high nonlinear refractive index at the resonant wavelength was shown.