Another entertaining and insightful perspective by Jacob Khurgin was uploaded to arXiv this week: Nonlinear optics: a look from the interaction time viewpoint and what it portends. It is similar in tone to his earlier article on high refractive index materials.
This is real old-school physics - using simple intuitive models to understand fundamental limits to nonlinear optical response and "the universal principle of unavailability of free lunch."
On the one hand, the take-home message is somber: no huge magic enhancement of nonlinearity is possible due to fundamental physical constraints; hype regarding various wondrous materials does not stand up to scrutiny. On the other hand, finding new "boring" materials exhibiting modest enhancements to properties such as optical damage threshold or propagation loss is still a worthy goal as a means of improving the performance of existing nonlinear optical devices including light sources based on harmonic generation, optical frequency combs, and parametric amplifiers.
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