Development of Solid State Non-Linear Absorbers - Dyes in Polymer Hosts

This paper describes the development of high quality solid state optical components which have been made by the incorporation of the reverse saturable dye chloro aluminium phthalocyanine (CAP) into polymeric host material. In particular, the effect of using different host materials with CAP is investigated in terms of key parameters such as solubility, integrity of the dye molecules in the polymer host, hardness of the resulting polymer, ease of polishing to the production of a good optical finish, induced stress, and non-linear absorption performance. Results are presented highlighting the above considerations, and problems encountered in material preparation will be described together with details on how, by careful choice of guest/host combination, good optical quality samples can be produced.