Abstract

Poly-4BCMU is a soluble polydiacetylene which has a large nonresonant third-order nonlinearity. The solubility of poly-4BCMU makes this an attractive nonlinear material for fabricating nonlinear integrated optical devices for high speed communications. In this paper we report results which show that poly-4BCMU bleaches in open air when exposed to radiation within the absorption band. Furthermore, the material can be bleached by two-photon absorption. The bleaching can be stabilized by removal of the oxygen. This effect is shown to be useful for fabricating integrated optical structures such as channels and gratings. Nonlinear measurements of the bleached and unbleached material are reported as well.

© 1989 Optical Society of America