Definition of Critical Structure/Function Relationships and Integration Issues for Organic Electro-Optic Materials
James G. Grote, Larry R. Dalton, Philip Sullivan, Bruce H. Robinson, Bruce Eichinger, Alex K.-Y. Jen, Stephanie Benight, Ilya Kosilkin and Denise H. Bale
The roles played by various spatially-anisotropic interactions, dielectric permittivity, and optical frequency in determining electro-optic activity in a variety of different types of organic materials is discussed from the perspective of correlated quantum/statistical mechanical methods and measurement techniques for the determination of poling-induced acentric order and molecular first hyperpolarizability. Comparison of experimental and theoretical data suggests that a “first principles” understanding of electro-optic activity in organic materials can be achieved for chromophore/polymer composites; chromophores covalently incorporated into polymers and dendrimers; and for complex binary (and multiple) chromophore-containing organic glasses. Issues associated with integrating organic electro-optic (OEO) materials into all-organic and hybrid OEO/silicon photonic devices are discussed. Conductivity plays a major role in defining the performance of devices and various options for minimizing the undesired effects of conductivity are discussed.
Keywords: Organic electro-optic materials and devices, intermolecular electrostaticinteractions, Monte Carlo calculations, time-dependent density functional theory, polymers, dendrimers, molecular first hyperpolarizability, dielectric permittivity, conductivity.