Luminescent 1,10-Phenanthroline β-Diketonate Europium Complexes with Large Second-Order Nonlinear Optical Properties.

Substitution of the diglyme ligand of [Eu(hfa)(diglyme)] (where hfa is hexafluoroacetylacetonate) with a simple 1,10-phenanthroline leads to a six-fold increase of the product μβ, as measured by the Electric-Field-Induced Second Harmonic generation (EFISH) technique. Similarly, [Eu(tta)(1,10-phenanthroline)] (where Htta is 2-thenoyltrifluoroacetone) is characterized by a large second-order NLO response. Both 1,10-phenanthroline europium complexes have great potential as multifunctional materials for photonics.