Abstract

Several push-pull polyenes and carotenoids have recently been found to display efficient optical second harmonic generation (SHG) in both the solid state and solution.^1,2 However, their rigid elongated structure limits the possibility of further organization of these moieties into conventional structures such as single crystals or Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films. We propose here an original supramolecular approach to circumvent these problems by means of inclusion of the polyene guest in functionalized cyclodextrins. We furthermore demonstrate a way to pile up multilayers of such host-guest systems in a noncentrosymmetric structure displaying a high quadratic nonlinear optical response.

© 1990 Optical Society of America