Nonlinear Optical Properties of Organic and Polymeric Materials

Abstract

Studies of the basic physics of nonlinear second order optical processes in solids remain critically important to the field of nonlinear optics and to further advances in telecommunications technologies. This fact receives continued emphasis today in problems of current interest such as phase conjugation and optical bistability. Research activities have centered on second order optical processes occurring in inorganic dielectric insulators and semiconductors primarily because of the important scientific achievements and resultant large body of available information from earlier studies of piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties and semiconductor transport. Consequently, nearly all of the nonlinear optical materials widely under study are inorganic solids. Recently, however, much interest has focused on organic and polymeric solids basically due to their exceptionally large nonlinear second order optical properties and the promise of virtually unlimited numbers of crystalline structures.(1-9)