Abstract

Photorefractive polymers have attracted a great deal of attention since they were first reported¹ in 1991. Since then, four wave mixing (FWM) diffraction efficiencies have increased from 10^-5 to near unity² in films on the order of 100 μm thick. Two beam coupling gains have also seen dramatic increases.³ These enhancements are mostly due to improvements in the materials and their processing. For example, it has been found that by substantially reducing the glass transition temperature of the polymer composite, a significant orientation of the nonlinear optical (NLO) chromophores in these composites can be achieved. The orientational enhancement⁴ gives rise to a large modulation of the linear birefringence which in turn gives a stronger photorefractive (PR) effect. In this work, we report on a new application for these PR polymer composites.

© 1995 Optical Society of America