SHG from centrosymmetric supermolecular crystal

Supermolecular crystal composed of p-nitrophenol, hexamethylenetetramine, phosphoric acid and water was obtained by supermolecular assembly. The crystal has a centrosymmetric structure with space group P21/c. The relative intensity and integral value of green frequency doubling of light from the crystal powder compared with that from KDP powder measured by pico-second Nd:YAG laser are 757.3 (KDP: 183.4) and 1771.7 (KDP: 423.98), respectively. In supermolecular crystal, due to the arrangement of centrosymmetric p-nitrophenol molecules in the inorganic-organic host framework formed by hexamethylenetetramine, phosphoric acid and water, the distances between the p-nitrophenol molecules with centrosymmetry are changed (N1A-O1A: 0.8158 nm, N1B’-O1B: 1.4450 nm, N1A-N1A’: 0.5837 nm, N1B’-N1B: 0.6898 nm), and the interaction between the dipoles becomes weak, which is easy for the ground state to turn into the excited state charge separated form, and generate the stable asymmetrical distribution of π-electron cloud density of quinonal structure, thus exhibiting SHG effect.