Macrocyclic functional dyes: Applications to optical disk media, photochemical hole burning and nonlinear optics

Our recent research activities on macrocyclic functional dyes such as phthalocyanines and porphyrins are reviewed. For optical data storage, we have established tetrabenzoporphine derivatives are suitable for shorter wavelength recording. we have proposed new photon-mode superresolution. The playback of double density EFM signals was achieved using a naphthalocyanine derivative. For future ultrahigh density optical recording, tetraphenylporphine derivatives are found to be a promising class of photochemical hole burning materials. The potential recording density is expected to be enhanced by two or three orders of magnitude compared to conventional optical-data storage. Fundamental computational research is going on to develop new materials with high nonlinear optical properties. We have predicted the hyperpolarizabilities of a series of metallo-porphyrins. These theoretical calculations enabled us to quantitatively design materials.