Magnetism and Molecular Nonlinear Optical Second-Order Response Meet in a Spin Crossover Complex

International audience; The quadratic hyperpolarizability of two inorganic Schiff base metal complexes which differ from each other by the nature of the central metal ion (FeII or ZnII) is estimated using hyper-Rayleigh light-scattering (HRS) measurements. The investigated FeII microcrystals exhibit a thermal spin-crossover (SCO) from a diamagnetic to a paramagnetic state centered at T1/2 = 233 K that can be reproduced by the HRS signal whose modest intensity is mainly due to their centrosymmetric packing structure. Diamagnetic ZnII microcrystals even lead to much weaker (∼400 times) HRS intensities which are in addition temperature-independent. These observations allow us to ascribe the ch…