Enhanced optical nonlinearity based on silicon ring

ABSTRACT

The time-dependent density functional cubic response calculations show that silicon analogues of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons have much larger non-resonant second-order optical hyperpolarisabilities (γ) than corresponding hydrocarbons. An analysis of fuzzy atom bond order quantitatively reveals that these silicon analogues have a very similar π-electron delocalisation to corresponding hydrocarbons. The enhanced optical nonlinearity of these silicon analogues is attributed to the higher (hyper)polarisabilities of the silicon atom and a significant decrease in transition energies of silicon analogues compared with corresponding hydrocarbons. The silicon analogues of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons would be good candidates as infrared nonlinear optical materials due to their enhanced non-resonant nonlinear optical polarisabilities in the infrared range.

KEYWORD:

• Polarisability
• silicon analogue
• hydrocarbon

Acknowledgements

We appreciate the financial supports from Natural Science Foundation of China Project 21303164 and the computational supports from Zhejiang Key Laboratory for Reactive Chemistry on Solid Surfaces.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.