Li, WeiBoswell, RoderickSamoc, MarekSamoc, AnnaWang, Rongping2015-12-080040-6090http://hdl.handle.net/1885/35656Defects were deliberately induced in SiOx thin films during their deposition using a helicon plasma activated reactive evaporation technique. The films were thermally poled and the poling induced second-order optical nonlinearity was investigated by measuring the second harmonic generation of the samples. It was found that oxygen-rich SiOx thin films containing mainly peroxy radicals enabled a much larger optical nonlinearity than stoichiometric SiO2 films after poling, and their optical nonlinearity was long-time stable; while silicon-rich SiOx thin films containing mainly oxygen vacancy defects presented a smaller and unstable optical nonlinearity after poling.Keywords: Defect structures; Deposition; Evaporation; Harmonic generation; Helicons; Nonlinear optics; Plasma waves; Silica; Helicon plasma; Optical nonlinearity; Thermal poling; Thin films Defect; Helicon plasma; Optical nonlinearity; Silica; Thermal poling200810.1016/j.tsf.2007.07.0272015-12-08