Design and synthesis of an ultraviolet-transparent nonlinear optical crystal Sr2Be2B2O7

POWERFUL, tunable ultraviolet laser sources, required for many spectroscopic applications, rely on the frequency-doubling of lasers in the visible range. Such second-harmonic generation (SHG) depends on the development of nonlinear optical (NLO) materials with high SHG coefficients, a wide transparent region in the ultraviolet, and moderate birefringence. Few such materials are available; those most widely used at present are the inorganic crystals β-BaB2O4 (BBO)1 and LiB3O5 (LBO)2. These crystals are effective for SHG only down to wavelengths of 205 nm (ref. 3), because of a limited ultraviolet-transparent range in the former case and birefringence problems in the latter. We have developed previously4 a new inorganic NLO crystal, KBe2BO3F2 (KBBF), which avoids both of these problems to a large degree. But it is hard to grow large crystals of KBBF because of weak binding between its layered structural units. We have now developed an improved material by rational design: Sr2Be2B2O7 (SBBO), which shares (and in fact slightly improves on) all of the favourable NLO properties of KBBF and is easy to grow as large (so far up to 7 × 7 × 3 mm) crystals of high optical quality. The large SHG coefficients and wide range of ultraviolet transparency make this material a promising candidate for frequency doubling into the ultraviolet.