A Schiff base complex N,N′-bis(2-hydroxy-1-naphthylmethylidene)-1-methyl-1,2- diaminoethane-N,N′,O,O′-nickel(II) has been synthesized. The title compound has been characterized by FT-IR and UV-vis spectroscopies. The UV-vis experiments indicate that the compound has solvatochromism in the UV region, implying non-zero molecular first hyperpolarizability. To investigate microscopic second-order nonlinear optical (NLO) behavior of the examined complex, the electric dipole moments (μ) and the first static hyperpolarizabilities (β) were computed using Finite Field second-order Møller Plesset (FF MP2) perturbation procedure. According to ab initio quantum mechanical calculations, the title complex exhibits non-zero β values, revealing microscopic second-order NLO behavior. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.