Photoelectric, nonlinear optical and photorefractive properties of polymer/carbon nanotube composites Original Research Article

Photoelectric and photorefractive properties at 1064 nm and 1550 nm and also nonlinear optical and electron-transport characteristics were investigated in polyvinylcarbazole (PVK) and aromatic polyimide (API) layers containing closed non-oxidized and oxidized single wall (SW) and also multi-wall (MW) carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Analysis of the nonlinear optical properties for polymer composites containing 0.26 wt.% SWCNTs showed very high third-order susceptibility (1.85 ± 0.35 × 10−10 esu). This enabled us to use the unplasticized polymers having a glass transition temperature above 200 °C in photorefractive cells.