Abstract

Newly emerging polymeric second order NLO materials have the potential to supplant inorganic crystals as the materials of choice for a variety of applications in modem optoelectronics technology, especially when high speed modulation and switching is involved. The main advantages forseen for the polymer based materials are their large intrinsic figures of merit and their compatibility with and tremendous advantages for fabrication of complicated structures on large substrates. Significant regular and systematic progress has been made in the design and discovery of novel nonlinear organic chromophores with large microscopic nonlinearities and additionally, significant progress has also been made in the creation of active nonlinear waveguides by polling of these dyes in a polymer matrix. Ultimately, optoelectronic applications mandate integration of the optical and electronic components and, therefore, the optical materials must meet many of the same criterion that organic electronic materials already do. For example, issues of mechanical, dielectric, and thermal stability properties must now be considered. Our efforts to identify robust dye/polymer combinations will be discussed, particularly initial approaches involving covalent attachment of chromophores to crosslinking epoxy networks.

© 1990 Optical Society of America