Third Order Optical Nonlinearities in Metal Dithiolate Complexes

We report here on measurements of the third order optical nonlinearity, χ(3), linear absorption coefficient, α, and two photon absorption coefficient, β, of a series of metal dithiolate complexes. The nonlinearities were measured at 1064 nm using 100 ps pulses. Molecular nonlinearities up to 103 times those of carbon disulphide were observed in solutions of about 1018 molecules/cc.