Molecular first hyperpolarizabilities of retinal and its derivatives

The hyper-Rayleigh scattering technique (HRS) has been used to determine the molecular first hyperpolarizabilities β of retinal, retinoic acid, vitamin A acetate and a retinal Schiff base in its protonated and unprotonated form. The former is responsible for the linear and non-linear optical properties of bacteriorhodopsin. A previous examination of these compounds by HRS at 1064 nm yielded surprisingly high β-values. Here, we report HRS measurements performed at 1064, 1300 and 1500 nm. The derived hyperpolarizabilities are self-consistent with the two-state model for all three wavelengths, but they are one order of magnitude lower than those reported previously.