Fabrication and characterization of organic materials-based electro-optic guided-wave, memory storage and electroluminescent devices

Current integrated optics technology is based upon inorganic crystalline LiNbO3. The concept of integrating an electro-optic polymer into a reverse poled Mach-Zehnder modulator to be used as an electrode-less E-field sensor was investigated in this work. The two core layers (PMMA and PVK doped with DR1), and the upper cladding layer (HMDS) were used as the guide layers. A channel wave guide with a lower cladding layer of SiO2, a core polymer of PVK-DR1 (n = 1.68) and an upper cladding layer of HMDS (n = 1.46) was constructed and tested for its thermal and optical integrity. Planar waveguiding for PVK-DR1 resulted in a loss 6 dB/cm and guiding in the Mach-Zehnder device had a loss of 9 db/cm. The device was poled with a low dc field of 20 V/mum and spectroscopic ellipsometry was used to detect the poling of the sample. The low dielectric constant of organic materials prompts their use in these devices as compared to conventional materials like LiNbO3. It was found that the device has been tested for use at high frequencies and for E-field sensitivity. The device fabricated here clearly exhibits this aspect of organic materials. The frequency regime that this device can be operated at is an order of magnitude higher than with the conventional LiNbO3 .; The optical properties of a new strong two-photon absorption cross section chromophore have been investigated both in the pure state and as a guest-host system in poly(vinylcarbazole). The chromophore was found to undergo a chemical change upon irradiation in air and was found not to exhibit upconversion after this transformation. A channel waveguide has been written onto the sample and it has been used for waveguiding. The sample was tested for loss in the waveguide by fabricating the device using SiO2 as the bottom cladding layer. The upper cladding layer was air. The loss in this channel device was of the order of 20 dB/cm.; The design and fabrication of low-drive-voltage LEDs was also carried out and results of the two-layer and three-layer LEDs based on PVK-PPV-PANI systems are presented. The layer thicknesses were varied and a number of samples were prepared to test for the minimum drive voltage that was required to produce emission in the device as a function of the layer thicknesses. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...