1000 V/μm pulsed poling technique for photolime-gel electro-optic polymer with room-temperature repoling feature

Abstract

An electric pulsed-poling technique is developed for achieving high-performance electro-optic polymers. A high poling field of 1 kV/μm can be applied across a polymer thin film without experiencing breakdown. This poling technique has been applied to a guest-host nonlinear polymeric system of photolime gel and chlorophenol red with loading concentration of 30 wt%. An electro-optic coefficient up to 40 pm/V at the 632.8 nm wavelength is achieved, which is 35% higher than that obtained by using conventional poling approaches. After decay the electro-optic coefficient can be fully recovered using the same poling method at room temperature. © 1998 American Institute of Physics.