Structure property correlations in alcohols through two-photon absorption cross-section measurements

Two-photon absorption (TPA) cross-sections of neat alcohols are shown to be a femtosecond laser measurable property with useful structure property correlations that are directly correlated to the self-phase modulation of the alcohol in question. The amount of self-phase modulation is shown to be a molecular structure dependent property. The real and the imaginary components of the second-order hyperpolarizability are thus shown to be interrelated. Such TPA measurements prove that it is not possible to predict two-photon absorption properties by simple doubling the wavelengths of one-photon absorption spectra.