Dipolar and Non-Dipolar Pyridine and Bipyridine Metal Complexes for Nonlinear Optics

Abstract

Metal complexes of pyridine and bipyridine-type ligands represent an important class of nonlinear optical (NLO) materials: (i) They can incorporate a variety of functionalised ligands with a wide range of metals which can give rise to tuneable NLO properties; (ii) they are generally associated with intense low-lying charge-transfer excitations such as metal to ligand charge-transfer (MLCT) or intraligand charge-transfer (ILCT); (iii) bipyridyl ligands are also good building blocks that allow the construction of octupolar complexes with a defined geometry and symmetry. This review describes the recent developments in the design of such dipolar and octupolar chromophores for second-order nonlinear optics.