Large crystal growth and new crystal exploration of mid-infrared second-order nonlinear optical materials

Abstract

Mid-IR second-order NLO crystal is indispensable in the frequency conversion applications in the mid-IR region. Compared with DUV and UV/Vis/near-IR NLO crystals, practical mid-IR NLO crystals are relatively rare, and many of them are still at the stage of laboratory research. This chapter reviews the recent progress on the mid-IR NLO crystals, which mainly includes growing the classical mid-IR NLO crystals into large high-quality ones or into quasi-phase-matching structures that are suitable for the laser devices by various growth methods and exploring new potential mid-IR NLO crystals by introducing new design and synthesis strategies. Recent mid-IR NLO crystals can be divided into four categories, i.e., classical binary and ternary metal pnictides and chalcogenides, quaternary metal chalcogenides, binary and ternary metal halides, and different-bond-type hybrid compounds that contain at least two types of obviously different chemical bonds in the crystal structures. Metal pnictides and chalcogenides have got much attention on growing large crystals. Different-bond-type hybrid is a new family of mid-IR NLO materials, and many of them were found in the last decade. In metal halide system, both progress in growing large crystals and discovering new ones have been made. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.