Design of New Copolymers for Photonics Applications: Incorporation of Nlo-Active Chromophores with Well-Defined Conjugation Lengths

Abstract

ABSTRACTElectroactive polymers such as poly [p-phenylene vinylene] (PPV) and poly [2,5-thienylene vinylene] (PTV) have been shown to yield highly conductive materials upon oxidative doping,1 and to display enhanced third order nonlinear optical response.2 Optical absorption spectra for either neutral or doped polymers, however, are quite broad, extending well into the visible for the neutral polymer and into the near infrared (NIR) for the doped polymers, with little evident fine structure. For certain nonlinear optical (NLO) applications, this can lead to undesirable absorption losses and resonance phenomena. We would like to describe how copolymers incorporating oligomeric dithienylpolyene segments may be designed so as to give some degree of control over the polymer absorption characteristics in either neutral or oxidized form.