Enhanced electro-optic response of layered composite materials

We have constructed a multilayered composite material consisting of alternating layers of rf-sputtered barium titanate and spin-coated polycarbonate containing a third-order nonlinear optical organic dopant. The effective nonlinear susceptibility of the composite describing the quadratic electro-optic effect was measured to have the value chi((3)) = (3.2 + 0.2i) x 10(-21) +/- 25% (m/V)(2). The real part of this value is a factor of 3.2 +/- 50% times larger than that of the doped polycarbonate, which is the dominant electro-optic component of the composite. We have modeled the experiment by using both effective medium theory and by solving the wave equation for our multilayered system, and we find that these approaches give consistent predictions which are in good agreement to the experimental results. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)03117-4].