| Recent advances in organic electro-optic (EO) materials have revealed large increases in EO activity reinforcing interest in organic EO technologies. Their unique pi-structures allow for direct pi-electron transfer within the material upon perturbation of an electric field. This allows for materials with large first molecular hyperpolarizabilities, beta, and potentially translating into macromolecular systems with unprecedented electro-optic coefficients, r33. Previously it was difficult to incorporate chromophores with exceptionally high beta's into commercial devices for many reasons, however, new material systems developed within this dissertation consisting of innovative chromophores, dendritic chromophores, and dendrimer systems have helped to relieve these persistent problems. The dendrimer and dendritic systems were utilized for producing polymer free stand-alone films. This allows for higher active loading densities within EO films and has experimentally proven dramatic increases EO activities. Studies using dendrimer and dendritic chromophore stand-alone films doped with secondary, high beta, chromophores also revealed even further enhancements to the EO activities to greater than 300 pm/V. Multiple variations to the host and guest materials were carried out to study a number of properties including maximum achievable EO activity, poling efficiency, film integrity, reproducibility, and thermal stability. This dissertation describes the steps taken to improve each of these properties starting from rational design to synthesis to materials characterization. |
