Premium
Femtosecond Polarization Switching in the Crystal of a [CrCo] Dinuclear Complex
Author(s) -
Kuramochi Hikaru,
Aoyama Genki,
Okajima Hajime,
Sakamoto Akira,
Kanegawa Shinji,
Sato Osamu,
Takeuchi Satoshi,
Tahara Tahei
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.202004583
Subject(s) - ultrashort pulse , femtosecond , polarization (electrochemistry) , materials science , metastability , raman spectroscopy , optoelectronics , optical switch , spectroscopy , laser , optics , chemistry , physics , organic chemistry , quantum mechanics
Capability to control macroscopic molecular properties with external stimuli offers the possibility to exploit molecules as switching devices of various types. However, application of such molecular‐level switching has often been limited by its speed and thus efficiency. Herein, we demonstrate ultrafast, photoinduced polarization switching in the crystal of a [CrCo] dinuclear complex by ultrafast pump–probe spectroscopy in the visible and mid‐infrared regions. The photoinduced polarization switching was found to have a time constant of 280 fs, which makes the [CrCo] complex crystal the fastest polarization‐switching material realized using the metastable state. Moreover, the pump–probe data in the visible region reveal the pronounced appearance of coherent nuclear wavepacket motion with a frequency as low as 22 cm −1 , which we attribute to a lattice vibrational mode. The pronounced non‐Condon effect for its resonance Raman enhancement implies that this mode couples the relevant electronic states, thereby facilitating the ultrafast polarization switching.