Optical materials based on molecular nano/microcrystals and ultrathin films

Methodologies that we developed recently for the fabrication of molecular crystals with size variation in the nano to micro regime and polyelectrolyte templated mono and multilayer Langmuir-Blodgett films, are reviewed. The electronic absorption and strong fluorescence in the molecular nano/microcrystals are found to be size-dependent. Crystal structure and computational investigations provide a unified model to explain these observations. Role of polyelectrolyte templating in achieving stable and enhanced optical second harmonic generation response from LB films based on a hemicyanine amphiphile is highlighted.