Cooperative Coupling of Cyanine and Tictoid Twisted π-Systems to Amplify Organic Chromophore Cubic Nonlinearities

We report a new class of hybrid π-electron chromophores with a large, sign-tunable third-order nonlinear optical (NLO) response, achieved via cooperative coupling of cyanine dye bond-length alternation effects with the rich density of states in zwitterionic twisted π-system chromophores. A combined synthetic, linear/nonlinear spectroscopic, and quantum chemical study reveals exceptional third-order response exceeding the sum of the individual chromophore contributions.