High-frequency response and acoustic phonon contribution of the linear electro-optic effect in DAST

We present a simple method to measure the contribution from acoustic phonons to the linear electro-optic effect. A step voltage with a short rise time (600 ps) is applied to the sample, and the electro-optic response is measured in the time domain. For the organic salt 4-N, N-dimethylamino-4(?)-N(?)-methyl-stilbazolium tosylate (DAST), we obtained a negative contribution of r(a)(111) = -1.0 +/- 0.1 pm/V to the overall electro-optic coefficient of r(111) = 48 +/- 5 pm/V (lambda = 1535 nm). The electro-optic response was limited only by the rise time of the applied voltage, which corresponds to a frequency of 1 GHz.