Organic nonlinear optical materials and their device applications for frequency doubling, modulation, and switching

Increased interest and activity in optoelectronics has resulted from anticipated applications of optics to communication, electronic interconnections, information storage and possibly even logic. Current nonlinear optical (NLO) devices today employ inorganic crystals, such as lithium niobate for electrooptic modulation and switching and KDP or KNbO3 for frequency doubling. Organic nonlinear optical materials, that is, poled organic polymeric films and organic crystals, have the potential to replace some of these inorganic crystals.1 Key advantages include the high intrinsic nonlinearities of some organic molecules, the ability to optimize the molecular structure for specific applications, low dc dielectric constant, and low temperature processing. Current progress has also been made in improving the long term stability of these materials. Here we wish to report on some of our recent results on measurements of the order parameter, new crosslinked polymeric materials which exhibit more stability and some device applications with polymeric materials and organic crystals.