Synthesis and third-order optical nonlinearities of ferrocenyl Schiff base

Four ferrocenyl Schiff bases were synthesized from ferrocenecarboxaldehyde and aromatic amine. The yields were 46–73%. These compounds have a D-A structure and third-order nonlinear optical (NLO) properties. The third-order nonlinear optical properties of the compounds were measured using femtosecond degenerate four-wave mixing. The third-order NLO susceptibilities of the compounds were 2.21–3.32 × 10−13 esu. The second-order hyperpolarizabilities of the molecules were 2.10–3.15 × 10−31 esu. The response times were 42–63 fs.