We apply scaling and the theory of the fundamental limits of the second-order molecular susceptibility to identify material classes with ultralarge nonlinear optical response. Size effects are removed by normalizing all nonlinearities to get intrinsic values so that the scaling behavior of a series of molecular homologues can be determined. Several new figures of merit are proposed that quantify the desirable properties for molecules that can be designed by adding a sequence of repeat units, and used in the assessment of the data. Three molecular classes are found. They are characterized by subscaling, nominal scaling, or superscaling. Superscaling homologues most efficiently take advantage of increased size. We apply our approach to data currently available in the literature to identify the best superscaling molecular paradigms with the aim of identifying desirable traits of new materials. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America
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