Measurement of the third order electronic susceptibility of LNA crystals

The third-order susceptibility of lanthanum-neodymium hexa-aluminate (LNA) crystals has been measured by the z-scan technique to be (0.13±0.02)×10−13 esu. Thermal contributions are estimated to be two orders of magnitude lower than the measured value. The nonlinearity is believed to be due to bound electronic effects, and the linear absorption spectrum of LNA supports the interpretation of a nonresonant nonlinear refractivity casual consequence of two-photon absorption.