Optical Kerr Shutter Response of Organic Microcrystals

Optical Kerr shutter responses of both polydiacetylene and J-aggregated merocyanine microcrystals dispersed in water were measured for the first time, using the gate beam at 1064 nm and the probe beam at 813 nm. The χ(3) values based upon optical Kerr effect for these microcrystals were on the order of 10-13 esu, and these physical quantities normalized by concentration (1 M) were approximately 10-9 esu/M, of which order is very large even in the nonresonant wavelength region.