Nanocomposite and Photonic-Crystal Polymer Structures for Nonlinear Photonic Applications

摘要

We have developed two experimental techniques for creating photonic structures in nonlinear optical (NLO) polymers with precisions down to nanoscale. The first technique uses nanoimprinting technology to directly pattern the guest-host NLO polymers. It can be applied to the fabrication of photonic bandgap structures in NLO materials, as well as many other photonic structures in both linear and nonlinear polymers. For example, we have shown that micro-ring optical resonator structure can be fabricated by using the imprinting technique. The second technique utilize self-assembly of NLO polymer monolayers onto nanostructured template. This approach provides a highly effective means to implement waveguide devices using high performance self- assembled polymers with large electro-optic activity and inherent long-term stability. Such method can also be extended to Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) and covalently self-assembled thin films, and enables practical device applications for nonlinear optical thin films synthesized by these different layer-by-layer growth approaches to utilize their material properties, such as high nonlinear optical coefficient, very fast electronic response and good thermal and temporal stability.