A Polar Material with Facility of Crystal Growth and a Large Second-Harmonic Generation Response

Compounds with a polar space group are widely interesting as they usually exhibit polar properties, such as a second-harmonic generation (SHG) response. Herein, we describe a hexahydrated aluminum iodate, which crystallizes into the polar space group P6(3). As expected, this polar material is SHG-active, with a powder SHG efficiency of about 8.0x that of the benchmark KH2PO4 (KDP) at 1064 nm in the 30-40 mu m particle size range. The UV-vis-NIR spectrum shows that AHIO is transparent from the UV region to the NIR region (0.31-1.63 mu m). The measured laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) of AHIO is 647MW/cm(2) (1HZ, 10 ns, 1064 nm). Notably, AHIO has a good crystal growth behavior, and its large single crystals have been readily obtained from its aqueous solution.

Automated summary

This study presents a hexahydrated aluminum iodate with a polar space group P6(3), showing SHG activity, high transparency, and a high laser-induced damage threshold at 1064 nm.