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Topics Covered
Overview
Inorganic NLO Materials
Organic NLO Materials
Nonlinear optical (NLO) materials have long been known to interact with light, to produce a nonlinear response and the composition of these materials, generally falls into one of two classes, either inorganic or organic.
Inorganic NLO materials such as lithium niobate (LiNbO3) or potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KH2PO4) are known to exhibit second harmonic generation (SHG) effect. Lithium niobate powders have attracted a great deal of attention due to their potential applications mainly because of its unique electro-optic, acousto-optic, and nonlinear optical properties. Over the last 40 years, lasers using inorganic materials have been employed as optical materials and consequently these materials have dominated optical technology.
During the 1990's, ð-electron organic materials were identified as promising candidates for nonlinear optical applications.However, more recent studies of NLO materials have focused on the use of organic materials with ð-electron conjugated systems. Such materials offer the advantages of larger optical nonlinearity and faster optical response. Other driving forces behind the recent development of organic NLO's include higher bandwidth, lower driving voltage, more flexible device design, and potentially lower processing cost. For chromophores to be of utility for nonlinear optical applications, they must be assembled into a noncentrosymmetric lattice.
Alfa Aesar offers a wide range of inorganic and organic NLO materials.
To request literature on non linear optical materials, please visit the Alfa Aesar website.
Source: Alfa Aesar
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