On the origin of the high Kerr coefficient measured in thallium–zinc–tellurite glasses

Measurements of Kerr electrooptical sensitivity of several zinc–thallium–tellurite glasses are presented, and composition dependence of Kerr sensitivity is compared with the dependence of the second harmonic generation efficiency collected for optically poled TeO2–TlO0.5–ZnO glasses. These data being analyzed jointly with Raman measurements data allowed us to conclude that the high electrooptical Kerr coefficient and nonlinearity of Tl2O–ZnO–TeO2 glasses, and their sharp increase with augmenting concentration of thallium oxide TlO0.5 above 15% should be attributed to the presence of Tl+ cations having very high non-linear polarizability most likely related to their electronic lone pairs.