Ultralarge and thermally stable electro-optic activities from diels - Alder crosslinkable polymers containing binary chromophore systems

A new method to disperse a highly efficient secondary chromophore into in situ crosslinked nonlinear optical (NLO) polymer networks, leading to both enhanced electro-optic (EO) activity and alignment stability at 85°C was prepared. The solutions were filtered through a 0.2 μm poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) filter and spin-coated onto indium-tin-oxide glass substrates. The films were then dried under high vacuum at 40°C for 10h to remove any residual solvent. The thin films derived from these materials showed excellent optical quality despite the high loading level of chromophore of the binary mixtures. All poling processes were performed at temperatures of around 110°C with a poling field ranging from 75 to 125 V μm ^-1. The normalized analysis of EO properties showed poling efficiency of binary systems at high chromophore loading level.