Abstract

Organic molecules with large second-order polarisabilities offer an important potential for applications requiring nonlinear opti cal properties, e.g. signal processing (1). Unfortunately most of these molecules form centrosymmetric crystals unsuitable for second-order optical effects. Recently, this impediment was circumvented by the use of the Langmuir-Blodgett (LB-) technique which allows to construct noncentrosymmetric lattices from organic molecules (2-5). A stringent requirement for the LB-technique to be applicable is the incorporation of long alkyl chains in the molecules, enabling the formation of oriented films.

© 1988 Optical Society of America