Modeling Relaxation Mechanisms in Nonlinear Optical Polymer Films

The thermal and temporal relaxation of polar order in polymeric electro-optic materials remains an important problem in the realization of these materials in applications. Fortunately, much progress has occurred in the development of more stable high- temperature materials. These developments, however, require that a regime for accelerated testing be established. Thus, measurement techniques and associated models which can connect the time and temperature behavior of new materials need to be refined. To this end, we report here on progress in the development of a new frequency domain technique for measurement, as well as progress on the development of a widely applicable model for chromophore orientational relaxation.