Optical dynamics of aminophenoxy substituted phthalocyanines and the covalent attachments to cadmium telluride quantum dots for picosecond pulse trains

•Phthalocyanines and their corresponding materials with semiconductor quantum dots are excellent optical limiting materials.•The quantum dots can strongly influence the OL performance during the laser propagation.•Phthalocyanines with quantum dots show better OL characteristics with picosecond pulse trains.