Electro-optic effects in molecular crystals

TLDR

The authors propose a simple expression to estimate the limiting values of electro‑optic and nonlinear‑optical coefficients. The study determined how electro‑optic coefficients depend on optical wavelength and electric‑field frequency and introduced a simple expression for estimating their limiting values. Electro‑optic properties of two nitropyridine crystals were evaluated, showing coefficient enhancements near acoustic resonances attributed to elasto‑optic effects, and the wavelength dependence of the electro‑optic figure of merit for organic and inorganic materials was estimated.

Abstract

The electro-optic properties of 2-cyclooctylamino-5-nitropyridine and 2-(N-prolinol)-5-nitropyridine single crystals have been evaluated. The dependence of the electro-optic coefficients on the optical wavelength and the frequency of the applied electric field was determined. Enhancements of these coefficients near acoustic resonances were observed and are discussed in terms of elasto-optic contributions. We propose a simple expression for estimation of the limiting values of electro-optic and nonlinear-optical coefficients. In addition, the wavelength dependence of the electro-optic figure of merit for organic and inorganic materials is estimated.