Highly Efficient Diels-Alder Crosslinkable Electro-Optic Dendrimers for Electric-Field Sensors

• Published in: Advanced functional materials 2007-09, Vol.17 (14), p.2557-2563
• Main Authors: Shi, Z., Hau, S., Luo, J., Kim, T.-D., Tucker, N. M., Ka, J.-W., Sun, H., Pyajt, A., Dalton, L., Chen, A., Jen, A. K.-Y.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Crosslinking; Dendrimers; Nonlinear optical materials; Sensors
• ISSN: 1616-301X; 1616-3028
• DOI: 10.1002/adfm.200600778

One of the most challenging tasks encountered in developing highly efficient electro‐optic (EO) devices is to find a material system that possesses all desirable properties such as large EO coefficients, good thermal and mechanical stability, and low optical loss. In order to meet this stringent requirement, we have developed a series of crosslinkable EO dendrimers using the standardized AJL8‐type chromophore as the center core and the furyl‐ and anthryl‐containing dendrons as the periphery. Upon adding a trismaleimide (TMI) dienophile, these dendrimers could be in‐situ crosslinked via the Diels–Alder cycloaddition and efficiently poled under a high electric field. Through this dynamic process, the spatially voided and π‐electron‐rich surrounding of the chromophore core changes into a dense and more aliphatic network, with the dipolar chromophore embedded and aligned inside. The resultant materials exhibit large EO coefficients (63–99 pm V–1 at 1.31 μm), excellent temporal stability (the original r33 values remain unchanged at 100 °C for more than 500 h), and blue‐shifted near‐IR absorption. With these combined desirable properties, a poled EOD2/TMI film could be processed through multiple lithographic and etching steps to fabricate a racetrack‐shaped micro‐ring resonator. By coupling this ring resonator with a side‐polished optical fiber, a novel broadband electric‐field sensor with high sensitivity of 100 mV m–1 at 550 MHz was successfully demonstrated. A series of Diels‐Alder crosslinkable nonlinear optical dendrimers showed dynamically tunable UV‐vis‐NIR absorption and large electro‐optic coefficients with excellent stability at 85‐100 °C. A racetrack‐shaped micro‐ring resonator from one of these materials has been coupled to a side‐polished fiber, leading to a novel broadband electric‐field sensor with high sensitivity and low invasiveness.