CROSS-LINKED POLYIMIDE ELECTROOPTIC MATERIALS

We report studies of the optical and electro-optic properties of guest-host polymeric nonlinear optical materials based on aromatic, fluorinated, fully imidized, organic soluble, thermally, and photochemically crosslinkable, guest-host polyimides. We have introduced temperature stable nonlinear optical chromophores into these polyimides and studied optical losses, electric field poling, electro-optic properties, and orientational stability. We measured electro-optic coefficients of 5.5 and 12.0 pm/V for ((2,6-Bis(2-(3-(9-(ethyl)carbazolyl))ethenyl)-4H-pyran-4-ylidene)propanedinitrile) DADC- and (4-(Dicyanomethylene)-2-methyl-6-(p-dimethylaminostyryl)-4H-pyran) DCM-doped guest-host systems at 800 nm using a poling field of 1.3 MV/cm. Poling induced nonlinearities in single-layer films were in agreement with the oriented gas model, but were lower in three-layer films due to voltage division across the layers. (C) 1995 American Institute of Physics.