Electro-optic Properties of DR1 Doped SiO2 Organic/inorganic Guest-host Films

We made a comprehensive investigation on the electro-optic(EO) properties of hybrid sol-gel silica film doped with Dispersed Red 1 dye(DR1/SiO2). An important finding is that the dipoles which don’t orient along the direction of corona poling field in the films can be instantaneously poled by alternate modulation electrical field. This instant poling effect results in the EO coefficients dependent on the frequency and intensity of alternate modulation electric field, and some experiments have proved it. We also investigated the electro-optic coefficients and thickness of films at different stir temperatures(Ts) of start solution and at different number densities of DR1. Experimentally the DR1 number density was optimized to an order of 1021/cm3 and a large EO coefficient of γ33=37 pm/V for DR1/SiO2 film was measured by simple reflection technique at 1 kHz frequencies of modulation electric field. These findings may benefit the practical application of DR1/SiO2 films in the field of EO modulator and EO probing.