New Developments in Thermally and Chemically Stable Nonlinear Optical Chromophores for E-O Device Applications

ABSTRACTA new class of second order nonlinear optical chromophores resulted from the replacement of the most reactive CN group in tricyanovinylthiophene derivatives with aryl units, have been designed and synthesized. It was shown that these chromophores provide excellent tradeoffs among many relevant properties such as molecular nonlinearity, linear absorption at 830 nm, inherent thermal stability, chemical stability in processing solvents as well as host polymer matrices at high temperatures and attenuation at 830 nm.