Polymeric nonlinear optoelectronic materials, challenges and opportunities

Today polymer science must play a key role if the opportunities involving integrated nonlinear optical waveguide devices are to be realized these nonlinear optical polymers simultaneously combine all the challenges implicit in the optimization of high temperature polymer dielectrics and passive polymer waveguide materials compounded by the requirement for the introduction of a large and stable optical nonlinearity in a nonlossy medium. It appears that concurrent research on both the thermoplastics and thermosets should be pursued as there is no exclusive advantage in either evident today. In the case of thermoplastics numerous classes of polymer may be explored which have higher glass transitions than the acrylates and which might be readily derivatized with NLO chromophores. The recent promising results on PPO derivatives fall in this category. (12) In the case of thermosets numerous classes of backbone and crosslinking chemistry may be explored to give materials with better thermal stability than the epoxies. The recent reports on cyanate terminated resins fall in this category. (13) Of course additional effort to identify nonlinear chromophores with thermal stabilities commensurate with the polymer host is also required. As such, the existing array of NLO chromophores need to be generically tested for stability.