Visible second-harmonic light generated from a self-organized centrosymmetric lattice of nanospheres.

We designed and fabricated a centrosymmetric material where one may be able to consider an efficient quadratic nonlinear interaction. We followed a solid phase-supported organic synthesis methodology to covalently bind a large number of highly nonlinear molecules to the surface of polystyrene nanospheres. Such chemically modified optically nonlinear latex spheres, when suspended in water, are seen to perfectly self-organize into a centrosymmetric lattice.