Electrooptical Properties of Nonlinear Dyes in PMMA and Poly-(alpha-methyl-styrene)

Abstract

In optical telecommunications there is a great demand for materials whose optical propagation properties can be influenced by electric fields. For slow switching rates liquid crystals can be used which have extremly high electrooptical coefficients due to mobility of the whole molecule. For higher switching rates electronic properties can be used like POCKELS effect and KERR effect. In order to implement these effects in a polymeric material, this can be doped by a suitable dye in relative small concentrations. The orientation behaviour of pure poly-(alpha-methyl-styrene) (PaMS) has been reported by Muto et al. (1); Singer et al. (2) have studied the electro- optical effect of organic dyes in poly-(methyl-methacrylate) (PMMA) using extremly high electric fields (some 100 V/μm). This paper reports on a study of the electrooptic behaviour of N,N-dihexyl-4-amino-4’-nitro-stilbene, called D 90/87, in PaMS and PMMA.