Assembly of π-Conjugated [B3O6] Units by Mer-Isomer [YO3F3] Octahedra to Design a UV Nonlinear Optical Material, Cs2YB3O6F2.

Achieving the extreme balance of the key performance requirements is the crucial to breakthrough the application bottleneck for nonlinear optical (NLO) materials. Herein, by assembly of the π-conjugated [B3O6] functional species with the aid of structure-directing property of mer-isomer [YO3F3] octahedra, a new ultraviolet (UV) NLO material, Cs2YB3O6F2 with aligned arrangement of coplanar [B3O6] groups has been synthesized. The polar material exhibits the rare coexistence of the largest second harmonic generation response of 5.6×KDP, the largest birefringence of 0.091 at 532 nm, the shortest Type I phase-matching down to 200.5 nm and deep-ultraviolet transparency among reported acentric rare-earth borates with [B3O6] groups. Remarkably, benefiting from the enhanced bonding force among functional units [B3O6], a firm three-dimensional framework is constructed, which facilitates the growth of large crystals. This can be proved by a block shape crystal with dimensional of 6×5×4 mm3, indicating that it was a promising UV NLO crystal. This work provides a powerful strategy to design UV NLO materials with good performances.

Prediction of Novel van der Waals Boron Oxides with Superior Deep-Ultraviolet Nonlinear Optical Performance.

Deep-ultraviolet nonlinear optical (DUV NLO) materials are attracting increasing attention because of their structural diversity and complexity. Using the two-dimensional (2D) crystal structure prediction method combined with the first-principles calculations, here we propose layered 18-membered-ring (18MR) boron oxide B2 O3 polymorphs as high-performance NLO materials. 18MR-B2 O3 with the AA and AB stackings are potential DUV NLO materials. The superior performing 18MR-B2 O3 AB has an unprecedentedly high second harmonic generation coefficient of 1.63 pm V-1 , the largest among the DUV NLO materials, three times larger than that of the advanced DUV NLO material KBe2 BO3 F2 and comparable to that of ß-BaB2 O4 . Its unusually large birefringence of 0.196 at 400 nm guarantees the phase-matching wavelength λPM to reach this material's extreme absorption edge of ≈154 nm.