Model of third harmonic generation and electric field induced optical second harmonic using simplified bond-hyperpolarizability model

We report a comprehensive study of the fourth rank tensor describing third harmonic generation (THG) and electric field induced second harmonic (EFISH) in centrosymmetric material from two different viewpoints: group theory and the simplified bond hyperpolarizability model (SBHM). We show that the fourth rank tensor related to THG and direct current EFISH can be reduced to two independent elements, whereas SBHM always gives only one, reproducing perfectly well EFISH experimental results in a metal oxide semiconductor. We argue that it is possible to reduce the fourth rank tensor describing EFISH to a third rank tensor and further deliver a classical explanation of EFISH regarding symmetry breaking, where the term containing r(3) in the potential immediately leads to second harmonic generation. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America