Effect of composition and temperature on the second harmonic generation in silver phosphate glasses

Abstract We herein employ nonlinear laser imaging microscopy to explicitly study the dynamics of second harmonic generation (SHG) in silver iodide phosphate glasses. While glasses of this family have gained extensive scientific attention over the years due to their superior conducting properties, considerably less attention has been paid to their unique nonlinear optical characteristics. In the present study, firstly, it is demonstrated that SHG signal intensity is enhanced upon increasing silver content due to the random formation of silver microstructures within the glass network. Secondly, the SHG temperature dynamics were explored near the glass transition temperature (Tg) regime, where significant glass relaxation phenomena occur. It is found that heating towards the Tg improves the SHG efficiency, whereas above Tg, the capacity of glasses to generate second harmonic radiation is drastically suppressed. The novel findings of this work are considered important in terms of the potential employment of these glasses for the realization of advanced photonic applications like optical-switches and wavelength conversion devices.