A light-transmitting compound that could one day be used in high-efficiency fiber optics and sensors that detect biological and chemical weapons at long distance almost went undiscovered by scientists because its structure was too difficult to examine.
"Like other such materials, this material has an electrically polarized structure," said Argonne scientist Mercouri Kanatzidis. "The incident light interacts with the electron cloud and in the process is disturbed. The disturbance changes the wavelength of the emitted light and creates two beams: the original and the second harmonic - a beam with half the wavelength and double the frequency."
This second-harmonic beam is 15 times more intense than that produced by the best current material. This two-for-one wavelength boost is paired with greater transparency, so the material can actually transmit the whole higher-wavelength beam.
These properties could have eventual real-world applications in identifying biological and chemical weapons at long distances and in optical communications.
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