Enhanced nonlinear optical properties and thermal stability of donor-acceptor substituted oligothiophenes

Abstract Linear and nonlinear optical properties of a series of novel donor-acceptor substituted α-oligothiophenes were investigated by means of electrooptical absorption measurements (EOAM) and electric field induced second harmonic generation (EFISH). The second-order polarizabilities β(−2ω; ω, ω) were related to dipole changes Δμ ag and transition dipoles μ ag associated with low-lying charge-transfer (CT) excitations by using the perturbational two-level approximation. Systematic variation of the donor and acceptor groups led to compounds with exceptional nonlinearity and thermal stability. Too strong donor/acceptor pairs, however, yielded structures in the charge-resonance (CR) limit with small or vanishing Δμ ag and β .