Study on all optical switching effect of excited state proton transfer organic molecule 3-hydroxyflavone

We report the dependence of the all optical switching effect of 3-hydroxyflavone (3-HF) on the efficiency of excited state proton transfer (ESPT) using pump probe method. A cw probe laser beam of 632.8nm passing through the sample is switched off by a 35ps pulse pump laser beam of 355nm. We also measured the nonlinear refractive index of 3-HF in different solvents by using z-scan technique. The results show that the optical switching effect will be more obvious when the efficiency of excited state proton transfer is improved, while not proportional to the nonlinear refractive index of 3-HF.