| Abstract: | This review discusses nonlinear optical (NLO) polymeric materials. As an example of a second-order NLO material, a novel copolymer with a diazo dye attached is investigated. The second-order NLO coefficient χ(2) of the copolymer reaches 1.0 × 10?6 esu, which is 7 times larger than that of LiNbO3. A third-order NLO coefficient χ(3) larger than 10?10 esu is obtained for polymers where NLO dyes are introduced into the polymer backbone. The optical transmission loss of these polymers is revealed to be around 2 dB/cm. As these polymers can be formed into channel waveguides using the photo-bleaching technique, they show promise for use in NLO devices because of their processability, transparency and large optical nonlinearity. |
