Chromium Iodate: Structure and Origin of Optical Second Harmonic Generation

Iodate crystal materials are some of the important candidates for mid-infrared nonlinear optical (NLO) crystals. Almost all the structures and NLO properties of monometallic iodates have been studied, except for a few difficult to synthesize crystalline phases. In this work, crystalline Cr(IO3)3 was synthesized and its optical properties were studied. Cr(IO3)3 has a strong powder second-harmonic generation (SHG) effect (1.3 × AgGaS2) and a large birefringence (0.24) at 2100 nm. Theoretical calculations indicate that the 3d orbital of Cr3+ is strongly involved in the SHG process, and the contribution of the metal cation centered unit CrO6 to the SHG response is much greater than that of the non-metal cation centered unit IO3. This study provides a new case among the few NLO materials in which the SHG response is dominated by metal cation centered groups.