Nonlinear optical and electro-optic properties of hybrid sol–gels doped with organic chromophores

✍ Scribed by Hongxi Zhang; Dong Lu; Mahmoud Fallahi

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 345 KB
• Volume: 28
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0925-3467
• DOI: 10.1016/j.optmat.2005.05.016

✦ Synopsis

This paper reports a systematic investigation on the nonlinear and electro-optic properties of hybrid sol-gel doped with azo-type chromophores. The host is based on photosensitive sol-gel prepared from 3-(methacryloxy)propyl trimethoxysilane-zirconium (or aluminum) oxide (MAPTMS-Zr(Al)) hybrid system. The chromophores are incorporated into the hybrid sol-gel as both guest and side-chain. Second harmonic generation experiment is conducted to optimize the poling parameters for the active sol-gel films. The stability of the second-order nonlinear optical coefficients is investigated by temporal decay test and heat-cool cycling experiment at elevated temperature. Electro-optic channel waveguides have been fabricated by direct ultra-violet exposure, direct blue laser writing, and reverse-mesa methods. Electro-optic effect of the waveguides is measured at 1550 nm and optical intensity modulation has been demonstrated. All the results show that the hybrid sol-gels are promising media for electro-optic devices for integrated optics in both performance and fabrication flexibility.