Fluorine-Mediated Benzothiadiazole Derivatives for Second-Order Nonlinear Optics

Abstract

With increasing research interests in the field of light-matter interactions, various methods have been developed for regulating nonlinear optical (NLO) materials. However, the design and synthesis of organic molecular materials for second-order nonlinear optics remain a great challenge because of the strict requirement of the materials to possess a noncentrosymmetric structure. In this work, two benzothiadiazole (BTD) derivatives referred to as BTD-H and BTD-F were synthesized, and their NLO properties in the crystalline states were studied. It was found that introducing fluorine into the BTD backbone effectively tuned the crystal packing styles of BTD derivatives to a noncentrosymmetric system for effective second-order NLO responses. Such a strategy to induce the noncentrosymmetric structure by introducing the fluorine atoms and halogen interactions may provide guidance for future engineering of organic NLO molecular materials.

Keywords

Benzothiadiazole (BTD) / Noncentrosymmetry / Second-order nonlinear optics / Fluorine

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