  Controlling the nonlinear optical (NLO) response properties at the molecular
level is a key to develop strong NLO active materials for technological
applications. In this paper, we report quantum chemical investigation of NLO
response properties of select aryl-substituted Boron-Dipyrromethene (BODIPY)
dyes, a class of intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) probes. Density
functional theory (DFT) with long-range corrected CAM-B3LYP functional and
cc-pVTZ, 6-31G(d,p) and 6-31+G(d,p) basis sets are employed to compute the
electronic structures and NLO response of the aforesaid molecules. Calculations
at the second order M{\o}ller-Plesset perturbation (MP2) level of theory are
performed for comparison. The results suggest that the charge transfer process
in these molecules is mostly unidirectional and the total first
hyperpolarizability (\b{eta}total) values of these molecules are dominantly
dictated by the response in the direction of charge transfer. Alteration of
conjugation strength through donor/acceptor substitution as well as twisting of
the phenyl ring obtained through incorporation of methyl groups affect the NLO
response of thesemolecules. The vector components of first hyperpolarizability
(\b{eta}vec) of the probe molecules are also studied to analyze the angle
between the vector components of \b{eta}vec and the dipole moment vector. The
results presented here are expected to shed light on the origin of NLO response
of several aryl-substituted BODIPY dyes and provide means to optimizing it for
future technological applications.
