Hyper Rayleigh scattering from DNA nucleotides in aqueous solution.

Nucleotides are organic compounds consisting of a phosphate group, a nitrogenous base, namely adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), or guanine (G), and a sugar, here deoxyribose. The magnitude of the first hyperpolarizability β of these four DNA nucleotides was determined in aqueous solution with the nonlinear optical technique of hyper rayleigh scattering under non resonant conditions at a fundamental wavelength of 800 nm. The smallest value is found to be 1.

Combining second harmonic generation and multiphoton excited photo-luminescence to investigate TiO nanoparticle powders.

Disentangling Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) and Multiphoton Excited Photoluminescence (MEPL) signals in microscopy experiments is not an easy task. Two methods have been so far proposed based either on a time domain or a spectral domain analysis of the collected signals. In this report, a new method based on polarization discrimination is proposed to separate these SHG and MEPL contributions.

Hyper-Rayleigh scattering of adenine, thymine, and cytosine in neat water.

The first hyperpolarizabilities of the DNA bases thymine and cytosine were determined by hyper-Rayleigh scattering in neat water despite their low solubility. Due to the low intensity levels collected, count statistics were performed instead of the standard dilution procedure. The first hyperpolarizabilities were found to be β = (2.

Non-linear optical properties of gold quantum clusters. The smaller the better.

By developing a new method for synthesizing atomically monodisperse Au15 nanoclusters stabilized with glutathione molecules and using the current state-of-the-art methods for synthesizing monodisperse protected Au25 nanoclusters, we investigated their nonlinear optical (NLO) properties after two-photon absorption. The two-photon emission spectra and the first hyperpolarizabilities of these particles were obtained using, in particular, a hyper-Rayleigh scattering technique. The influence on NLO of the excitation wavelength, the size as well as the nature of the ligands is also explored and discussed.

A bottom-up approach to build the hyperpolarizability of peptides and proteins from their amino acids.

We experimentally demonstrate that some peptides and proteins lend themselves to an elementary analysis where their first hyperpolarizability can be decomposed into the coherent superposition of the first hyperpolarizability of their elementary units. We then show that those elementary units can be associated with the amino acids themselves in the case of nonaromatic amino acids and nonresonant second harmonic generation. As a case study, this work investigates the experimentally determined first hyperpolarizability of rat tail Type I collagen and compares it to that of the shorter peptide [(PPG)10]3, where P and G are the one-letter code for Proline and Glycine, respectively, and that of the triamino acid peptides PPG and GGG.

Effect of a thioalkane capping layer on the first hyperpolarizabilities of gold and silver nanoparticles.

We have measured the first hyperpolarizabilities of thioalkane capped silver and gold metallic nanoparticles. The values found are β(AgC 12-10 nm) = (2.10 ± 0.

Three-dimensional mapping of single gold nanoparticles embedded in a homogeneous transparent matrix using optical second-harmonic generation.

We report the three-dimensional mapping of 150 nm gold metallic nanoparticles dispersed in a homogeneous transparent polyacrylamide matrix using second-harmonic generation. We demonstrate that the position of single nanoparticles can be well defined using only one incident fundamental beam and the harmonic photon detection performed at right angle. The fundamental laser beam properties are determined using its spatial autocorrelation function and used to prove that single nanoparticles are observed.

Optical second harmonic generation of single metallic nanoparticles embedded in a homogeneous medium.

We report the optical second harmonic generation from individual 150 nm diameter gold nanoparticles dispersed in gelatin. The quadratic hyperpolarizability of the particles is determined and the input polarization dependence of the second harmonic intensity obtained. These results are found in excellent agreement with ensemble measurements and finite element simulations.

Investigating the interaction of crystal violet probe molecules on sodium dodecyl sulfate micelles with hyper-Rayleigh scattering.

We report the use of the nonlinear optical technique of hyper-Rayleigh scattering to investigate the interaction of the cationic probe molecule crystal violet with micelles of sodium dodecyl sulfate. An absolute value of (847 +/- 80) x 10(-30) esu is measured at the fundamental wavelength of 870 nm for the molecular hyperpolarizability of crystal violet free in pure aqueous solutions. In aqueous solutions of sodium dodecyl sulfate, above and below the critical micelle concentration, the measured hyperpolarizability of crystal violet is weaker than in the solution free of sodium dodecyl sulfate.

Wavelength dependence of the hyper Rayleigh scattering response from gold nanoparticles.

The wavelength dependence of the quadratic hyperpolarizability of 11 nm diam gold nanoparticles, is reported as measured by hyper Rayleigh scattering. An important photoluminescence background underlying the hyper Rayleigh signal is observed, a contribution attributed to radiative electron-hole recombinations following multiphoton excitation favored by adsorbed organic compound like citrate on the surface of the nanoparticles. The absolute value of the quadratic hyperpolarizability of gold spherical nanoparticles is determined and a strong enhancement is observed for harmonic frequencies in resonance with the dipolar surface plasmon excitation.

Hyper-Rayleigh scattering of gold nanorods and their relationship with linear assemblies of gold nanospheres.

The surface plasmon enhanced hyper-Rayleigh scattering light collected from an aqueous solution of gold nanorods is reported. A non negligible part of the signal is attributed to a photoluminescence background attributed to the electron hole recombination following multiphoton excitation of d-valence band electrons into the sp-conduction band. This radiative relaxation process is likely favored by the presence of the organic species adsorbed at the surface of the nanorods.