Polymers for Optoelectronic Applications via Enzymatic Resolution of Chiral Monomers

Organic polymers are potentially ideal nonlinear optical (NLO) materials for integrated optoelectronic devices due to their demonstrated compatibility with semiconductor electronics technology, their processability, and their large capacity for engineered NLO properties. The wide variability in NLO properties of these materials derives from a nearly unlimited ability to vary the chemical composition of the polymer backbone (e.g. copolymers) and side-chain substituents, or to dope an NLO inactive polymer host matrix with an NLO active guest (guest-host systems). A fundamental problem with the use of polymeric materials is the poling or aligning process needed to obtain the second order optical nonlinearity. In the proposed work, we will undertake to apply methods of enzymatic resolution to obtain optically pure chiral monomers, synthesize polymers from these monomers and examine the ability of these polymers to impart an asymmetric environment to an NLO active guest. OPTION TASK: None submitted.