Highly Stable Polyimide Based NLO Polymers for Electrooptic and Photorefractive Applications

Electro-optic materials with large optical nonlinearities (electrooptic coefficients) and high thermal and temporal stabilities are crucial components in many photonics applications. Organic and polymeric NLO materials are excellent candidates for these applications. Current materials experience a dielectric relaxation of the aligned structure which prevents them from being used in practical devices. The design and synthesis of a new class of second-order nonlinear optical polymers with large molecular nonlinearities, increased processabilities and exceptional thermal, temporal and photochemical stabilities are proposed. The second-order chromospheres are designed to possess an arylamine structure, the use of which not only increases their molecular nonlinearities, but also dramatically improves their thermal stabilities. These chromospheres are then covalently attached to a high glass transition temperature polyimide backbone. During the electric field poling process, the polymers undergo crosslinking reaction through which additional resistance to chromosphere dipolar relaxation is achieved.