New Polymeric Materials for Nonlinear Optical Applications

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

New nonlinear spectroscopic techniques (interferometric and multi- color degenerate four wave mixing), together with femto and pico second conventional nonlinear and electro-optic modulation measurements, with be used to define mechanisms of optical nonlinearity in newly synthesized metal free and metallated ladder copolymers, metallated macrocyclic polymers, thienylpolyene copolymers, mixed valence molecules (in solution) and polymers, the photosynthetic reaction center and related model compounds, and in fullerenes. Copolymer synthesis techniques are used to overcome intrinsically poor solubility of ladder, macrocyclic, and thienylpolyene materials, to retard photochemical degradation of mixed valence and thienylpolyene materials, to control intermolecular interactions and to permit measurement of materials under comparable local field conditions. Treatment of electronic and nuclear dynamics as well as the details of the applied electromagnetic fields by density matrix methods permits characterization of multiple mechanisms of optical nonlinearity in a single material. Preliminary realization of large optical nonlinearities suggest that, with further optimization of material properties device application of organic, inorganic and mixed valence polymers, may be practical. This research on nonlinear optical materials combines synthesis, state-of-the-art characterization and measurements, and study of the mechanisms of optical nonlinearity. The grant is supported jointly by the Polymers and the Solid State Chemistry components of the Solid State Chemistry and Polymers Program.