Pyrylium salt dye for non-poled polymeric thin film nonlinear optical waveguide applications

Summary form only given. Ionic pyrylium salt dyes in spin-coated waveguides have been shown recently to be good candidates for frequency conversion to the blue region of the spectrum, particularly by anomalous dispersion phase-matching. Because the dye was charged, the film was naturally self-aligning and poling was not required. Self-alignment provides robust structures, since they are not prone to relaxation. However, the nonlinearity was determined to be only at the film/substrate interface, thus limiting wave interaction. In this work, ionic self-assembled monolayer waveguides were fabricated as an attempt to distribute the nonlinearity of an ionic pyrylium salt derivative throughout the waveguide thickness.