Main-Chain Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Polymers for Electronic Nonlinear Optics Applications 1

Abstract

We report the synthesis of organic polymer optical fibers with the following interesting supermolecular stereochemistry: 1) A thermodynamically stable macroscopic polar axis oriented approximately normal to the fiber axis; and 2) A nonlinear optical (NLO) chromophore oriented along the polar axis. Such a polymer fiber has been created using a main-chain ferroelectric liquid crystal polymer (FLCP) frozen in the glassy state at room temperature. The material is composed of “side-by-side twin” mesogens wherein the DR-1 NLO chromophore is oriented normal to the director. The polymer, which possesses excellent liquid crystal and glass transition temperatures for the present study, was prepared by acyclic diene metathesis polymerization of a liquid crystal diene. Details of the layer and director structure in the FLCP glasses are under investigation.

Keywords:

• Ferroelectric liquid crystals
• nonlinear optics
• main-chain PLC polymers

Acknowledgment

This work was supported in part by the AFOSR (Liquid Crystal MURI) and by the Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Materials Research Center (National Science Foundation MRSEC award No. DMR-0213918).

Notes

†^†During the academic year Dr. Keller's address is: Institut Curie-Section De Recherche, UMR 168 CNRS/IC, 11 Rue P. et M. Curie, CEDEX 05 75231 Paris, France.