Recent Advances in the Translation of Large Microscopic Nonlinearities to Large Macroscopic Nonlinearities in Electro-Optic Polymer Films

Abstract

Typical electro-optic polymers are characterized by second-order nonlinear optical (NLO) chromophores arranged polar-asymmetrically in an amorphous polymer matrix. It is believed that the electro-optic activity of workhorse NLO chromophores (e.g., DANS and Disperse Red) are of insufficient magnitude to be viable candidates for commercial device-quality materials.1 Consequently, much effort has been directed in the past few years toward the development of chromophores with device-quality magnitudes of molecular optical nonlinearities. Unfortunately, the translation of these so-called high-β chromophores to the expected bulk electro-optic activities in polymers generally has not been achieved. Recently, we have shown that this lack of electro-optic activity is due primarily to strong intermolecular electrostatic interactions between chromophores, which tend to align the chromophores in an antiparallel fashion, resulting in no net polar asymmetry in the bulk material.2,3