Phenyl-urea chromophores: DFT insights into nonlinear optical enhancement

Abstract

The present investigation has examined the nonlinear optical (NLO) responses of molecules based on phenyl-urea. The optimized geometries of complexes: (4-nitrophenyl) urea (PU1), 1-methyl-3-(4-nitrophenyl) urea (PU2), and 1,1-dimethyl-3-(4-nitrophenyl) urea (PU3) are extracted using M06–2X/6–311++ g (d, p) level of theory. The estimated nonlinear optical responses (NLO) of the compounds given are based on static and dynamic hyperpolarizabilities, which are reinforced by the dipole moment, polarizabilities, global reactivity parameters, HOMO-LUMO gap, molecular electrostatic potentials (MEP), and βvec. Comparing PU1, PU2, and PU3 to reference substances like urea and p-nitroaniline, a considerably higher NLO activity is estimated. Out of all the compounds, PU3 has the largest NLO response. Such a significant NLO reaction can be attributed to a small HOMO-LUMO gap and high charge transfer. Second-harmonic generation (SHG) and electro-optic Pockel's effect (EOPE) are being explored for dynamic NLO responses. These compounds that are bases of phenyl-urea exhibit a very significant quadratic nonlinear optical response.