3RD HARMONIC-GENERATION IN PBO-SIO2 AND PBO-B2O3 GLASSES

The third order nonlinear optical susceptibilities chi(3) of PbO-SiO2 and PbO-B2O3 glasses have been measured by the third harmonic generation (THG) method using silica glass as reference. It is found that the third order nonlinear susceptibilities chi(3) of each series of glasses increase with increasing lead content, corresponding to the increase in the polarizability per unit volume and the decrease in the energy gap of the glasses. The largest chi(3) values obtained are 31.1 x 10(-14) esu for a 66PbO.34SiO2 glass and 31.2x10(-14) esu for a 70PbO.30B2O3 glass, about 11 times larger than that of pure silica glass.