Abstract
Organic optical limiters are vital for protecting human eyes and sensitive optics against laser radiation, offering exceptional optical properties, and ultrafast responses. However, their practical applications are hindered by aggregation-caused quenching and photodegradation in the solid state. Here, we proposed an ingenious all-solid, passive optical limiter via high-elastic-state thermo-compression, integrating indium phthalocyanine anchored to functional moieties within polymer microspheres. The key innovation lay in the coordination-bond anchoring strategy, which effectively suppressed indium phthalocyanine aggregation and facilitated the intersystem crossing. The resulting device demonstrated exceptional limiting performance, with a giant nonlinear absorption coefficient (4.80 × 10−5 m/W) and an ultralow optical limiting threshold (< 0.013 J/cm2) at 532 nm, originating from long-lived triplet carrier accumulation. Moreover, the device exhibited excellent mechanical robustness and practical protection capability, as applied in smartphone camera. This work provided a viable strategy toward high-performance, practical organic solid optical limiter for next-generation laser protection applications.
Data availability
The authors declare that the data supporting this study are available within the paper and Supplementary Information files. Source data are provided with this paper.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.52505446 to D.C.), Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (Grant No.2025JJ60268 to D.C.), Innovation Research Foundation of National University of Defense Technology (Grant No. ZK2023-25 to D.C.), and Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province for Youth Students (Grant No. 2026JJ90235 to Y.C.).
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Study was concepted by D.C. and developed by D.C. and Y.C. Methodology and experiments were designed and carried out by Z.Z., D.C., C.G., and Y.C. Experimental conditions and materials were offered by D.C., Z.Z., C.G., and Y.W.; Validation and data curation was conducted by D.C., Z.Z. and C.G.; Q.Z., F.L. and F.W. provided feedback throughout experiments. Formal analysis was performed by Y.W. J.J., and C.W.; The original manuscript was written by D.C. and Y.C. Editing and review was conducted by D. C., Y.C., Z.Z. and C.G.
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Chen, D., Chen, Y., Wang, Y. et al. All-solid passive organic optical limiter via coordination-bond anchoring strategy. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71898-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71898-8
