Abstract
Own results of the study and application of a number of organic synthetic photochromic systems in the optical devices are presented. These results are compared with the data obtained for natural photochromic bacteriorhodopsines. It was shown that synthetic photochromic systems are characterized by more wide functional possibilities as compared with the natural systems based on bacteriorhodopsine for application in the optical devices. Advances in application of synthetic and natural photochromic systems for light modulation and recording optical information as well as nonlinear transformation of laser irradiation are discussed.