Optoelectronic devices

DETAILED DESCRIPTION This invention specifically relates to acrylic polymers capable of exhibiting nonlinear optical responses in an electric or electromagnetic field and to the method of preparing said polymers and more particularly to polyacrylamides and polyacrylates having average molecular weights above about 15,000 gm/mol and/or such polymers in network form, and to specific acrylic polymers useful in electro-optic devices for processing signals.
For purposes of this invention the term acrylic polymer(s) includes the polymeric amides and esters derived from the various acrylic acids and/or acrylic acid anhydrides as illustrated by the formulae disclosed herein.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide an acrylic polymer capable of exhibiting nonlinear optical responses in an electric or electromagnetic field and the use of these polymers in various electric and/or optical devices.
It is another object of this invention to provide an acrylic polymer which exhibits a large second and third order optical nonlinearity.
These polymeric materials are useful in such applications as second harmonic generation (in which the frequency of an optical wave is doubled) and optical phase conjugation, and in devices which rely on the Pockels or Kerr effects to change the refractive index It is a further object of this invention to provide a process of preparing nonlinear acrylic polymers capable of exhibiting optical responses in an electric or electromagnetic field.
It is still a further object of this invention to provide electro-optic devices e.
g.
switches etc.
capable of processing optical signals by use of a component containing the nonlinear acrylic polymers of this invention.