CaltechAUTHORS
Published January 19, 1996 | Version public
Journal Article Metadata-only

Chromophores with Strong Heterocyclic Acceptors: A Poled Polymer with a Large Electro-Optic Coefficient

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 2. ROR icon École Normale Supérieure - PSL
  • 3. ROR icon Jet Propulsion Lab
  • 4. ROR icon University of Basel

Abstract

Syntheses of a series of conjugated donor-acceptor chromophores, based on a strongly electron-withdrawing heterocyclic acceptor, have led to compounds with large second-order optical nonlinearities. Incorporation of one of these chromophores into polycarbonate at 20 percent weight loading yielded, after poling at 150 volts per micrometer, a polymer film with an electro-optic coefficient, r_(33), of 55 picometers per volt at 1.313 micrometers. This value is roughly twice that of lithium niobate. A variant of one of these chromophores exhibited improved thermal stability as needed for use in polymers with higher glass transition temperatures. The chromophore was soluble in common organic solvents, had a scalar product of the dipole moment, μ, and the molecular first hyperpolarizability, β (corrected for dispersion), of roughly 5000 × 10^(−48) electrostatic units, and showed less than 10 percent decomposition after heating for 20 minutes in air and at 200°C in an inert organic solvent.

Additional Information

© 1996 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received 9 August 1995; accepted 7 November 1995. The work in this paper was performed in part at the Center for Space Microelectronics Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This work was sponsored by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, Innovative Science and Technology Office. Support from the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research is also gratefully acknowledged. M.S. thanks the Schweiz Nationalfonds for support. P.V.B. thanks the James Irvine Foundation for a postdoctoral fellowship.

Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
52848
DOI
10.1126/science.271.5247.335
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20141216-091412715

Related works

Describes
10.1126/science.271.5247.335 (DOI)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2890462 (URL)

Funding

NASA
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization
NSF
Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
Schweiz Nationalfonds
James Irvine Foundation

Dates

Created
2014-12-16
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Updated
2021-11-10
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