Photorefractive polymers -: Physical properties and photonic applications of these new materials

This paper is a review about the new photorefractive organic materials and their potential photonic applications, the photorefractive polymers. The physical properties required for observing photorefractivity, including charge generation, transport, and nonlinear optical properties are discussed for amorphous polymers. The nonlinear optical properties on a macroscopic level are related to the microscopic properties by using the Oriented Gas model. Four Wave Mixing (FWM) and Two Beam Coupling (TBC) experiments, to investigate the photorefractive properties of the material by measuring the diffraction efficiency eta of the polymeric gratings, and the optical gain coefficient Gamma are described. Kogelnik's Coupled Wave model to describe the photorefractive polymeric gratings is reviewed. Finally some applications of these new polymers are presented.