We present new stilbazolium salt DSTMS (4‐N,N‐dimethylamino‐4′‐N′‐methyl‐stilbazolium 2,4,6‐trimethylbenzenesulfonate) with both high second‐order nonlinear optical properties and very favorable crystal growth characteristics. We are able to obtain very large area bulk single crystals of more than 3 × 3 × 0.2 cm3 with a high optical quality without using seed crystals by using low‐temperature solution growth. We also demonstrate the growth of single crystalline thin films of DSTMS with an area of up to 6 × 5 mm2 and a thickness between 5–30 μm. Nonlinear optical measurements reveal that DSTMS possesses large nonlinear optical susceptibilities with χ111(2) = (430 ± 40) pm V–1 at 1.9 μm. Highly efficient generation of broadband THz waves with THz electric field strengths of more than 4 kV cm–1 using 160 fs laser pump pulses at a wavelength λ = 1.45 μm and DSTMS crystals has been demonstrated.
A series of nonlinear optical chromophores based on configurationally locked polyene are synthesized, and the single crystal growth from the melt are investigated. The chromophores consist of a π-conjugated hexatriene bridge between the dialkylamino or methoxy electron donors and the dicyanomethylidene electron acceptor. The physical and nonlinear optical properties and the single crystal X-ray structures of these chromophores are characterized. Specifically, the chromophore 2-{3-[2-(4-dimethylaminophenyl)vinyl]-5,5-dimethylcyclohex-2-enylidene}malononitrile (DAT2) exhibits a strong powder second-harmonic generation signal of about 2 orders of magnitude greater than that of urea and a large temperature difference of 80 °C between the melting temperature and the recrystallization temperature. Finally, we demonstrate the growth of single crystalline thin films of DAT2 by a Bridgman-type melt growth technique, which gives a new direction for organic nonlinear optical crystal engineering using melt-growth techniques.
New organic nonlinear optical configurationally locked polyene (CLP) crystals based on 3,5-dimethyl-2-cyclohexen-1-one have been designed and their supramolecular organization investigated. Acentric single crystals 2-(5-methyl-3-(4-(pyrrolidin-1-yl)styryl)cyclohex-2-enylidene)malononitrile (MH2) of large sizes with a maximal side length of up to 1 cm have been grown from acetonitrile solution. The acentric MH2 crystals present the monoclinic space-group symmetry Cc and exhibit a large macroscopic nonlinearity with a similar powder second-harmonic generation efficiency at 1.9 µm as the well-studied DAST (N,N-dimethylamino-N′-methylstilbazolium p-toluenesulfonate), which is about seven times larger than that of analogous CLP crystals studied previously. The microscopic and macroscopic nonlinearities are also investigated theoretically using quantum chemical calculations.
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