Sol-Gel Processed Inorganic and Organically Modified Composites for Nonlinear Optics and Photonics

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Abstract
The newly emerging field of Nonlinear Optics and Photonics offers tremendous opportunities for material scientists. In this paper, chemical processing using the sol-gel method is described for the preparation of new composite materials of both a silica glass and a V2O5 gel with a wπ conjugated polymer poly-p-phenylene vinylene up to 5d% by weight. The composite films show highly improved optical quality with large third-order nonlinear optical coefficients, the latter from the conjugated polymer. Optical waveguiding through the film has been achieved. Nonlinear optical studies using femtosecond degenerate four wave mixing and power dependent waveguide coupling have been successfully performed. Also, to investigate the use of such films for optical recording, a two-dimensional grating structure has successfully been produced.