Magneto-Optic Devices Based on Organic Polymer Materials.

摘要

The focus of this program has been to develop new magneto-optic (MO) composite polymer materials, including substituted polythiophenes, magnetic nanoparticles polymer composites and other pi-conjugated polymers with large MO Verdet constants to develop free space and integrable magneto-optic devices of interest to AFOSR. In this period a theoretical formalism has been established to suitably rationalize experimental Faraday rotation results from regioregular polyalkylthiophenes and their dependence on regioregularity. Magnetic nanoparticle core polymer shell nanocomposites have been modified with various surface functionalities to suit embedding in commercially available optical waveguide photoresists, such as SU-8 and the polysiloxane OE 4140 enabling a new set of polymer waveguide MO devices, a step closer to integrable isolators. A gadolinium based room temperature magnetic ionic liquid was developed with strong magneto-optic properties that is completely colorless and transparent up to 1.55xm enabling a capillary fiber based isolator device very similar to a 3mm long 65% Tb3+-doped fiber isolator with 28dB isolation we have developed in collaboration with WPAFB. Collaborations with various Si-photonics groups have been established and works are underway to incorporate magnetic nanoparticles polymer composite materials developed under this program into Siphotonics platform for fabrication of compact, integrable isolators.