The continued interest in molecules that possess large quadratic nonlinear optical (NLO) properties has
motivated considerable interplay between molecular synthesis and theory. The screening of viable candidates
for NLO applications has been a tedious work, much helped by the advent of the hyper-Rayleigh scattering
(HRS) technique. The downside of this technique is the low efficiency, which usually means that measurements
have to be performed at wavelengths that are close to the molecular resonances, in the visible area. This
means generally that one has to extrapolate the results from HRS characterization to the longer wavelengths
that are useful for applications. Such extrapolation is far from trivial and the classic 2-level model can
only be used for the most straightforward single charge-transfer chromophores. An alternative is the TKSSOS
technique, which uses a few input-hyperpolarizabilities and UV-Vis absorption data to calculate the
entire hyperpolarizability spectrum. We have applied this TKS-SOS technique on a set of porphyrines to
calculate the hyperpolarizability dispersion. We have also built a tunable HRS set up, capable of determining
hyperpolarizabilities in the near infrared (up to 1600 nm). This has allowed us to directly confirm the results
predicted in the application region. Due to the very sharp transitions in the hyperpolarizability dispersion, the
calculation is subjected to a very precise calibration with respect to the input-hyperpolarizabilities, resulting
in very accurate predictions for long wavelength hyperpolarizabilities. Our results not only underscribe the
aforementioned technique, but also confirm the use of porphyrines as powerful moieties in NLO applications.
Successfully predicting the frequency dispersion of electronic hyperpolarizabilities is an unresolved challenge in
materials science and electronic structure theory. It has been shown1 that the generalized Thomas-Kuhn sum rules
combined with linear absorption data and measured hyperpolarizabilities at one or two frequencies, may be used to
predict the entire frequency-dependent electronic hyperpolarizability spectrum. This treatment includes two- and threelevel
contributions that arise from the lowest two or three excited state manifolds, enabling us to describe the unusual
observed frequency dispersion of the dynamic hyperpolarizability in high oscillator strength M-PZn chromophores,
where (porphinato)zinc(II) (PZn) and metal(II)polypyridyl (M) units are connected via an ethyne unit that aligns the
high oscillator strength transition dipoles of these components in a head-to-tail arrangement. Importantly, this approach
provides a quantitative scheme to use linear optical absorption spectra and very few individual hyperpolarizability values
to predict the entire frequency-dependent nonlinear optical response. In addition we provide here experimental dynamic
hyperpolarizability values determined by hyper-Rayleigh scattering that underscore the validity of our approach.
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