Molecular Salts with Diquat-Based Electron Acceptors for Nonlinear Optics

We have used several techniques, including Stark spectroscopy and MO calculations, to investigate the optical and electronic properties of two new dipolar chromophoric cations containing diquat-based electron acceptor groups. Both the Stark data and the calculated parameters show that the strong electron-accepting properties of a diquat unit lead to static first hyperpolarizabilities β0 which are considerably larger than those of a related stilbazolium chromophore. In addition, one compound has a strongly 2D quadratic NLO response, providing a very rare example of a charged molecule displaying such behavior.