Large second-order optical nonlinearity in a molecular crystal formed from a chiral smectic liquid crystal

Abstract

Articles you may be interested inLinear and second-order nonlinear optical properties of ionic organic crystals Investigation of the linear and second-order nonlinear optical properties of molecular crystals within the local field theory Large second-order optical nonlinearity in a ferroelectric molecular crystal of croconic acid with strong intermolecular hydrogen bonds Large second-order optical nonlinearities of fresnoite-type crystals in transparent surface-crystallized glasses J. Appl. Phys. 95, 3503 (2004); 10.1063/1.1664022Tensor analysis of the second-order nonlinear optical susceptibility of chiral anisotropic thin films A new approach to achieving a large second-order nonlinear optical susceptibility in a chiral liquid crystal is described. This approach uses an aligned smectic-C* liquid crystal as a template for forming a molecular crystal, which freezes out the rotation of the molecular dipoles and thereby greatly enhances the noncentrosymmetric order of the structure. Analysis of the measured second harmonic generation gives maximum values of individual susceptibility components of ϳ25 pm/V, which are stable when the field is removed.