Ultafast organic nonlinear optical molecules and the realization of mesoscopic photonic devices

In the twentieth century, revolutionary changes took place in the human society and people’s life-style due to the improvement of the optoelectronic information technology based on the second-order nonlinear optical effects, such as the electro-optic effect, the second harmonic generation (SHG), and so on. Along with the rapid development of light information technology, new principles and methods of nonlinear optics are needed, and the third-order nonlinear optical effects attract great attention. The research progress of nonlinear optics is reviewed in this article. Our research work on the third-order nonlinear optical materials, ultrafast and low-power organic all-optical photonic crystal switching are introduced.