Large phase change by cascaded second-order effects in 3-methyl-4-methoxy-4'-nitrostilbene single crystals

In recent years second-order cascading effects in non-centrosymmetric crystals have drawn much attention not only in the context of basic understanding of the nonlinear optical processes but also potential applications in all-optical devices such as optical switches and transistors. Since the amount of phase change due to the second-order cascading is proportional to the square of the effective d-value, organic crystals with large second-order susceptibilities, such as 3-methyl-4-methoxy-4-nitrostilbene (MMONS) are of great interest in this respect. MMONS crystals show one of the largest second-order susceptibilities and the effective d-value was measured to be d/sub eff/=38 pm/V at 1.064 /spl mu/m by Maker fringe technique.