Recent measurements of transmission versus fluence for a methanol-solvated asymmetric pentaazadentate porphyrin-like (APPC) cadmium complex, [(C H -APPC)Cd]Cl, showed the limitations of current energy-level models in predicting the transmission behavior of organic reverse saturable absorbers at fluences greater than 1 J/cm . A new model has been developed that incorporates higher-order triplet processes and accurately fits both nanosecond and picosecond transmission-versus-fluence data. This model has provided the first known determination of a higher triplet excited-state absorption cross section and lifetime for an APPC complex and also described a previously unreported feature in the transmission-versus-fluence data. The intersystem crossing rate and the previously neglected higher triplet excited-state absorption cross section are shown to govern the excited-state population dynamics of methanol-solvated [(C H -APPC)Cd]Cl most strongly at more-practical device energies. © 2005 Optical Society of America. 6 4 6 4 2
