A new type of organic donor-π-acceptor compounds with third-order nonlinear optical properties

Abstract Ten new organic donor-π-acceptor compounds were synthesized and characterized by UV, IR, 1 H NMR and elemental analysis. Off-resonant third-order nonlinear optical properties of the compounds were measured using femtosecond laser and degenerate four-wave mixing technique. The third-order nonlinear optical susceptibilities χ (3) were 3.50–4.29 × 10 −13 esu. The nonlinear refractive indexes n 2 were 6.42–7.89 × 10 −12 esu. The second-order hyperpolarizabilities γ of the molecules were 3.63–4.47 × 10 −31 esu. The response times were 69–112 fs. The results show that these compounds have potential nonlinear optical applications.