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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2011
A series of unconventional twisted intramolecular charge-transfer (TICT) chromophores was designed and synthesized. These chromophores exhibit ultra-large first hyperpolarizabilities. The structural characteristic that promotes this unusual nonlinear optical response is a sterochemically enforced reduction of the D- π-A conjugation that enforces zwitterionic behavior in the ground state and provides a low-energy, large-oscillator strength intramolecular excitation feature. The consequence is that molecules with relatively small numbers of π-electrons exhibit responses far larger than those of traditional planar π-conjugated chromophores. At 1907 nm, non-resonant νβ values as high as -466,000 × 10-48 esu are observed.