Optical second-harmonic effect of sol-gel inorganic-organic nanocomposites

Abstract

Communications: Second-order nonlinear optically (NLO) active materials have promising technical applications in optoelectronic devices. A general problem in NLO-active polymeric systems is the decay of orientational order with time. Results are presented which show that using inorganic-organic composite materials produced by the sol-gel process as a rigid matrix for oriented ÷(2) chromophores (Figure) may provide a means of overcoming this problem.