Abstract

Organic materials have shown promise as second order nonlinear materials¹; however, device demonstrations have been lacking. This has been largely due to the difficulty of growing noncentrosymmetric crystals out of the polar organic molecules and lack of suitable waveguide fabrication techniques for these materials. We have approached this problem by using polymers where the nonlinear (NLO) moiety is attached to a polymer backbone as a pendant side chain². Using the polymeric materials, we have fabricated and tested planar waveguide modulators. Linear waveguides have also been fabricated with these polymers and are being developed into phase and polarization rotation modulators.

© 1988 Optical Society of America