RECENT ADVANCES IN THE SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF NONLINEAR OPTICAL-MATERIALS - 2ND-ORDER MATERIALS

A major problem in utilizing second-order organic materials for device applications is the requirement for the assembly of these chromophores into a stable, noncentrosymmetric lattice. For certain applications, such as frequency doubling, a periodic noncentrosymmetric lattice may be desirable. In this presentation, we discuss the synthesis of such organic polymeric lattices and evaluation of modulators and doublers fabricated from resulting materials. The general approach is to develop soluble, processible precursor polymers which can be transformed into stable noncentrosymmetric lattices by electric field poling and subsequent photoinduced or thermally induced solid state crosslinking reactions. Photo-processing is utilized to generate periodic noncentrosymmetric lattices for quasi-phase-matched second-harmonic generation.