2ND-ORDER AND 3RD-ORDER OPTICAL NONLINEARITY OF HOMOGENEOUS GLASSES

Conventional melt-quenched homogeneous glasses are promising materials for photonic applications. In particular, second- and third-harmonic generation has been studied for developing photonic devices, such as photonic switches, memories and modulators. The third-order non-linear susceptibility, X((3)), of the glasses depends on the refractive index and is caused by non-linear electronic polarization. Quite large X((3)) Of nearly 10(-11) esu are seen in high-index chalcogenide glasses. On the other hand, second-order non-linearity, X((2)), is observable in strongly electrically polarized SiO2 or TeO2-based bulk glasses as well as in GeO2 or rare earth oxide-containing silica glass fibers.