Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
For potential optoelectronic applications, new polymeric thin filmscontaining nonlinear optical chromophores aligned by electric field polingfor a χ(2) nonlinear optical response have been prepared andstudied. Spectroscopic and optical waveguiding techniques, as well as secondharmonic generation and electrooptic measurements, are being used tocharacterize these thin film materials. Here we optimize the chromophores inspectral response, nonlinearity, concentration and degree of alignment.Stability in the nonlinearity has been improved considerably by attachingthe chromophores to crosslinked epoxy polymers. Some applications of thesematerials for electrooptic phase modulators will be presented.