Second Harmonic Generation Microscopy in Molecular Crystalline Nano-Objects

Recent progresses in nanoparticles fabrication and analysis open the way to a new type of nanoprobes, which are able to radiate second harmonic generation (SHG) emission with a high efficiency and stability. The coherent nature of SHG makes it a valuable tool to investigate the structural quality of such systems at the scale of one single nano-object, which is difficult to perform using traditional diffraction techniques or linear optics microscopy measurements. This paper describes the specificity of nonlinear microscopy applied to the study of individual nano-crystals of different nature.