Abstract

What is believed to be the first evidence of an all-optical orientation of a highly transparent polymer is presented. The samples are bulk rods of poly(methyl methacrylate) grafted with paranitroaniline (PNA) obtained by use of copolymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA) monomers mixed with grafted MMA–PNA monomers. Bulk samples were obtained after molding and polishing of the copolymer with standard techniques. Experiments show that the photoinduced second-order1 susceptibility ${\chi }^{\left(2\right)}$ may occur through molecular reorientation following selective polar excitation of the nonlinear chromophores by simultaneous two- and three-photon absorption on the same electronic level.

© 1997 Optical Society of America

Quasi-permanent all-optical encoding of noncentrosymmetry in azo-dye polymers

Céline Fiorini, Fabrice Charra, Jean-Michel Nunzi, and Paul Raimond
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 14(8) 1984-2003 (1997)

Control of the polarization dependence of optically poled nonlinear polymer films

S. Brasselet and J. Zyss
Opt. Lett. 22(19) 1464-1466 (1997)

Real-time monitoring of all-optical poling of azo-dye polymer thin film

Victor M. Churikov, Meng Feng Hung, and Chia Chen Hsu
Opt. Lett. 25(13) 960-962 (2000)

Modified theory of photoinduced molecular polar alignment in azo polymers

Gang Xu, Xuchun Liu, Jinhai Si, Peixian Ye, Zhao Li, and Yuquan Shen
Opt. Lett. 25(5) 329-331 (2000)

Photoinduction of surface-relief gratings during all-optical poling of polymer films

Aleksandra Apostoluk, Jean-Michel Nunzi, and Céline Fiorini-Debuisschert
Opt. Lett. 29(1) 98-100 (2004)