Parity-Forbidden Excitations ofSr2CuO2Cl2Revealed by Optical Third-Harmonic Spectroscopy

Abstract
We present the first study of nonlinear optical third-harmonic generation (THG) in the strongly correlated charge-transfer insulator Sr2CuO2Cl2. For fundamental excitation in the near infrared, the THG spectrum reveals a strongly resonant response for photon energies near 0.7 eV. Polarization analysis reveals this novel resonance to be only partially accounted for by three-photon excitation to the optical charge-transfer exciton, and indicates that an even-parity state at 2 eV, with a1g symmetry, participates in the third-harmonic susceptibility.
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