UNESCO-UNISA-iTLABS/NRF Africa Chair in Nano-Sciences & Nanotechnology, CGS, University of South Africa, Muckleneuk ridge, Pretoria, 0001, South Africa.
NANOAFNET, iThemba LABS-National Research Foundation of South Africa, 1 Old Faure Road, Cape Town, 7129, Western Cape, South Africa.
Sci Rep. 2022 May 31;12(1):9078. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-12196-3.
In line with the renewed interest in developing novel Non Linear Optical (NLO) materials, natural Lycopene's NLO Properties are reported for the first time within the scientific literature. Correlated to its 1-D conjugated π-electrons linear conformation, it is shown that natural Lycopene exhibits a significantly elevated 3rd order nonlinearity χ as high as 2.65 10 esu, the largest value of any investigated natural phyto-compound so far, including β-carotene. In addition to a saturable absorption, the corresponding observed self-defocusing effect in Lycopene seems to be the result of a thermal nonlinearity. The nonlinear response coupled to the observed fluorescence in the Visible spectral range points to a potential photodynamic therapy application as well as the possibility of engineering of novel hybrid Lycopene based NLO nano-materials.
在重新关注开发新型非线性光学 (NLO) 材料的背景下，本研究首次在科学文献中报道了天然番茄红素的 NLO 性质。与它的一维共轭π 电子线性构象相关，研究表明天然番茄红素表现出显著提高的三阶非线性 χ 值高达 2.65×10-10 esu，这是迄今为止任何已研究的天然植物化合物中最高的值，包括β-胡萝卜素。除了饱和吸收之外，在番茄红素中观察到的相应自散焦效应似乎是热非线性的结果。与可见光谱范围内观察到的荧光相关的非线性响应表明，番茄红素可能具有潜在的光动力治疗应用以及工程新型基于番茄红素的 NLO 纳米复合材料的可能性。
