Development of Highly Active Electro-Optic Polymers for In-Line Fiber PhotonicDevices

摘要

Optivision has competed a Phase I STTR project with the objective of developinghighly active, electro-optic (EO) polymers tailored for use in in-line fiber photonic devices. The specific Phase I tasks were: (1) Synthesize or obtain a quantity of development polymer. (2) Develop suitable processing and characterization methodologies. (3) Perform device level testing of EO polymers using a polymeric in-line fiber (PILF) structure. (4) Identify suitable nonlinear optical (NLO) chromophores for resonantly enhanced EO polymers. (5) Develop a synthesis strategy for novel highly active EO polymers to be produced during Phase II. (6) Perform a high level design of a device to be built during the Phase II effort. We have successfully completed all of these tasks. We have developed new EO polyquinoline materials specifically tailored for use in PILF structures and demonstrated the use of these polymers in actual PILF devices. The new polyquinolines incorporate chromophores with large UB values and red shifted absorption peaks, resulting in polymers with EO coefficients of approximately 30 pm/V at a wavelength of 1.3 micrometers.