Nonplanar Push–Pull Chromophores for Opto-Electronic Applications

Donor-substituted cyanoethynylethenes (CEEs) are planar push–pull chromophores featuring intense intramolecular charge-transfer (CT) interactions and high third-order optical nonlinearities. Their thermal stability allows for the formation of crystalline thin films by vapor-phase deposition. On the other hand, high-quality amorphous thin films are preferred for opto-electronic applications and such films can be prepared using nonplanar push–pull chromophores with a less pronounced propensity to crystallize. By taking advantage of a versatile, atom-economic 'click-chemistry'-type transformation, involving a formal [2 + 2] cycloaddition of tetracyanoethene (TCNE) to electron-rich alkynes, followed by cycloreversion, stable donor-substituted 1,1,4,4-tetracyanobuta-1,3-dienes (TCBDs) are obtained in high yield and large quantities. These nonplanar push–pull chromophores also feature intense intramolecular CT and, in many cases, high third-order optical nonlinearities. Some of these compounds form high-optical-quality amorphous thin films by vapor-phase deposition, and first applications in next-generation opto-electronic devices have already been demonstrated. Chiral derivatives display high helical twisting power and are efficient dopants to translate molecular into macroscopic chirality, by switching nematic into cholesteric liquid crystalline phases

Optical properties of highly nonlinear silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) waveguide geometries

Geometry, nonlinearity, dispersion and two-photon absorption figure of merit of three basic silicon-organic hybrid waveguide designs are compared. Four-wave mixing and heterodyne pump-probe measurements show that all designs achieve high nonlinearities. The fundamental limitation of two-photon absorption in silicon is overcome using silicon-organic hybrid integration, with a five-fold improvement for the figure of merit (FOM). The value of FOM = 2.19 measured for silicon-compatible nonlinear slot waveguides is the highest value published. (C) 2009 Optical Society of Americ

Influence of shallow traps on the enhancement of the photorefractive grating amplitude by a high-frequency alternating electric field: a probabilistic analysis

International audienceWe calculate the photorefractive grating amplitude in the presence of a high-frequency applied electric field in terms of the mean-square drift length of the charge carriers. We describe how a shallow-trap level and the related long effective deep-trap recombination time are detrimental to the enhancement produced by a squarewave field. We give expressions for the shallow-trap-induced reduction in the steady-state photorefractive gain as well as for its frequency dependence. The photorefractive gain reaches the same value obtained in the one-level model at low frequencies but falls almost exponentially to a shallow trap-limited value for higher frequencies. We compare the predictions of our model with other existing models and with experimental data

Quasi-accord de phase par couplage entre guides d’onde parallèles

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Coupling length phase matching in a pair of parallel waveguides for nonlinear optical frequency conversion

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