Organic-inorganic hybrid gels - Preparation and application in optics

Organic-inorganic hybrid solids have been prepared using sol-gel process. The sol-gel technique offers a low temperature attractive approach for introducing organic molecules into amorphous materials. Moreover variety of shapes, including thin films and monoliths can be obtained. The merits of these solids are their improved optical quality and mechanical strength required for optical applications. They exhibit optical transmission in visible range and they can be easily polished. In this paper, we report the incorporation of several organic molecules (photochromic compounds, porphyrin derivatives and nonlinear optical chromophores) in sol-gel matrices. We show that the diversity of the alkoxide type precursors allows to modify the properties of the doped xerogels by changing the nature and the intensity of chemical and steric interactions between the optically active guest system and the solid host matrix.