Strong Second- and Third-Harmonic Generation in 1D Chiral Hybrid Bismuth Halides

Breaking the symmetry of a crystal structure can enable even-order nonlinear activities, including second-harmonic generation (SHG). The emerging chiral hybrid organic-inorganic metal halides feature unique optical and electronic properties and flexible crystal structures, making them a class of promising nonlinear optical materials. However, their nonlinear response performances are currently inferior to traditional nonlinear crystals, because of the lack of research on resonant enhancement and third-harmonic generation (THG). Herein, we designed chiral hybrid bismuth halides with naturally nonsymmetrical structure to enable SHG. Simultaneously, these chiral compounds preserve 1D crystal structures to create strong free exciton, broad self-trapped exciton (STE), and discrete band energy levels, which facilitate the resonant enhancement of SHG and THG susceptibilities. These new chiral films showcase superior effective SHG susceptibility (chi((2)) similar to 130.5 pm V-1 at an interesting wavelength of 1550 nm), exceeding that of the reference, a commercial LiNbO3 (chi((2)) similar to 83.4 pm V-1) single-crystal film. Furthermore, their THG intensities are even higher than their SHG intensities, with effective THG susceptibility (chi((3))) being similar to 9.0 x 10(6) pm(2) V-2 at 1550 nm (37 times that of the reference monolayer WS2). Their high SHG and THG performances indicate the promising future of these 1D chiral hybrid bismuth halides toward nonlinear optical applications.

Automated summary

Breaking the symmetry of crystal structures can enable even-order nonlinear activities, such as second-harmonic generation. The designed chiral hybrid bismuth halides with naturally nonsymmetrical structure exhibit superior effective second-harmonic generation and third-harmonic generation performances compared to traditional nonlinear crystals, showcasing promising potential for nonlinear optical applications.