The measurement of second-harmonic generation in novel ferroelectric liquid crystal materials

Abstract

We present the analysis of experimental results on second-harmonic generation in a novel ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) material, o- nitroalkoxyphenyl biphenylcarboxylate 1, synthesized specifically for large nonlinear coefficients. All nonzero dij coefficients have been measured, with the largest being d22 = 0.6 ± 0.3 pm/V. Relative values of refractive indices are also given suggesting uniaxial optical properties with large birefringence (nz − nx≊ 0.20 at λ=1.064 μm). This material demonstrates the flexibility of FLC molecular synthesis to form thermodynamically stable macroscopically aligned materials for second-order nonlinear optics applications.