A theoretical study on the second-order nonlinear optical susceptibilities of lithium formate monohydrate crystal, HCOOLi·H2O

Abstract Ab initio calculations of the first hyperpolarizabilities of (HCOOLi·H 2 O) 2 n supermolecules, as the building-blocks of lithium formate monohydrate (LFM) crystal with extended system, were performed for the first time. The dependence of the static β ijk 0 values on chain length was explored, and the frequency dependence of β ijk (−2 ω ; ω , ω ) was measured, and the influences of electron correlation and basis set on β ijk 0 were evaluated. Finally, we predicted the second-order nonlinear optical coefficients of LFM crystal. The β ijk 0 value of (HCOOLi·H 2 O) 2 n is linearly dependent on the chain length of supermolecule, which is quite unusual for an extended system connected by the O–Li bonds with ionic characters. Although the static component of β zzz 0 tensor is the static largest in these three components under study, the absolute value of frequency-dependent β zyy (−2 ω ; ω , ω ) element, transforming the smallest into the largest, is the most sensitive to frequency. After the fundamental wavelength is smaller than 500 nm, it is found that the β ijk (−2 ω ; ω , ω ) value is resonantly enhanced to a great extent due to the double frequency lies in the region of resonance. In addition, the β zxx 0 value goes from negative to positive with changes of electron correlation and basis set. Obviously, it is very necessary to take into account the effect of electron correlation, if the hyperpolarizability tensor components must be accurately calculated. Moreover, it is also very important whether it is adopted a complete basis set with diffuse and polarization functions. The calculated nonlinear coefficients at high level suggest that the scaled set reported by Robert seem more reasonable.