Nonlinear Optical Processes in Organic and Polymer Structures

Abstract

Large, ultrafast second and third order nonlinear optical properties have been demonstrated in a large number of organic and polymer structures. Such advances are important to the fields of nonlinear optics and optical device technologies. The organic and polymer systems can be formed as organizable designed structures possessing a number of special primary properties that include wideband electronic polarizations whose microscopic origin resides in highly charge correlated virtual excitations. These ultrafast excitations occur on individual molecular, or polymer chain, sites whose condensed assemblies are described by their orientational distribution functions. In this regard, the results of two recent studies are reviewed.