Large Third-Order Optical Nonlinearity for Dipolar Carbene-Metal-Amide Material with Two-Photon Excited Delayed Fluorescence

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Abstract Advanced photonic materials showing two-photon absorption (2PA) have been widely explored to develop three-dimensional imaging, micro and nanofabrication, all-optical switching, lithography on a nanoscale and many other enabling technologies. These all require nonlinear absorption chromophores with intrinsic high 2PA cross-sections and long-term photo- and thermal stability. Here, we disclose the very first example of the dipolar carbene-metal-amide (CMA) material showing a high 2PA cross-section up to 105 GM. Overall molecular design considerations such as extended π-conjugation (to increase polarizability), minimizing the singlet-triplet energy gap (ΔE ST ), and using heavy metal atoms are the first design principles to obtain bright one- and two-photon excited thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) material, showing one of the highest radiative rate of 2.18·10 6 s − 1 across CMA materials. Bright red CMA 2P-TADF material shows excellent photostability (LT 50  = 3 h) to 20 mW femtosecond pulsed laser excitation at 1000 nm, encouraging further CMA exploration for future applications in advanced photonic technologies requiring third-order nonlinear optical properties.
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Large Third-Order Optical Nonlinearity for Dipolar Carbene-Metal-Amide Material with Two-Photon Excited Delayed Fluorescence | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Large Third-Order Optical Nonlinearity for Dipolar Carbene-Metal-Amide Material with Two-Photon Excited Delayed Fluorescence Alexander Romanov, Ikechukwu Nwosu, Lujo Matasovic, Tárcius Ramos, and 10 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6487329/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 17 Feb, 2026 Read the published version in Communications Chemistry → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Advanced photonic materials showing two-photon absorption (2PA) have been widely explored to develop three-dimensional imaging, micro and nanofabrication, all-optical switching, lithography on a nanoscale and many other enabling technologies. These all require nonlinear absorption chromophores with intrinsic high 2PA cross-sections and long-term photo- and thermal stability. Here, we disclose the very first example of the dipolar carbene-metal-amide (CMA) material showing a high 2PA cross-section up to 105 GM. Overall molecular design considerations such as extended π-conjugation (to increase polarizability), minimizing the singlet-triplet energy gap (ΔE ST ), and using heavy metal atoms are the first design principles to obtain bright one- and two-photon excited thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) material, showing one of the highest radiative rate of 2.18·10 6 s − 1 across CMA materials. Bright red CMA 2P-TADF material shows excellent photostability (LT 50 = 3 h) to 20 mW femtosecond pulsed laser excitation at 1000 nm, encouraging further CMA exploration for future applications in advanced photonic technologies requiring third-order nonlinear optical properties. Physical sciences/Materials science/Materials for optics/Nonlinear optics Physical sciences/Chemistry/Materials chemistry/Optical materials Photoluminescence two-photon absorption TADF nonlinear optics carbene complex gold Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files SupportingInformation.docx Supporting Information Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 17 Feb, 2026 Read the published version in Communications Chemistry → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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