Vibrational contributions to static linear and nonlinear optical coefficients: from two-level to two-band systems

Abstract

The importance of vibrational contributions to the static linear and nonlinear optical coefficients is investigated. We apply the exact sum-over-state (SOS) formulas for polarizabilities and hyperpolarizabilities expressed in terms of vibronic states to a two-level system with a single vibrational mode. The Herzberg–Teller expansion is applied to the SOS formulas including vibrational energy levels without employing the Placzek’s approximation within both the Born–Oppenheimer approximation and electrical and mechanical harmonicities. The results include not only the vibrational contribution from the lattice relaxation expression but also the contribution arising from the higher-order correction terms. Model calculations on a diatomic system with two electronic states show that the contribution of these correction terms is small. Moreover, most of these higher-order terms are negligible in the solid-state limit. In polyacetylene, the contribution of the lattice relaxation expression is much larger than that in the diatomic case. Within the tight-binding approximation, the contribution of the lattice relaxation expression is 44% of the pure electronic contribution for the second hyperpolarizability.