Bond Models in Linear and Nonlinear Optics

摘要

Bond models, also known as polarizable-point or mechanical models, have a long history in optics, starting with the Clausius-Mossotti relation but more accurately originating with Ewald's largely forgotten work in 1912. These models describe macroscopic phenomena such as dielectric functions and nonlinear-optical (NLO) susceptibilities in terms of the physics that takes place in real space, in real time, on the atomic scale. Their strengths lie in the insights that they provide and the questions that they raise, aspects that are often obscured by quantum-mechanical treatments. Statics versions were used extensively in the late 1960's and early 1970's to correlate NLO susceptibilities among bulk materials. Interest in NLO applications revived with the 2002 work of Powell et al., who showed that a fully anisotropic version reduced by more than a factor of 2 the relatively large number of parameters necessary to describe second-harmonic-generation (SHG) data for Si(111)/SiO_2 interfaces. Attention now is focused on the exact physical meaning of these parameters, and to the extent that they represent actual physical quantities.