Photo-patterning of the quadratic optical properties of doped photopolymers

We present an original approach to structure the quadratic non-linear optical properties of doped polymers based on photopolymerizable resins. The orientation of the push–pull molecules incorporated in the material is locked by the polymerization process induced by an exposure to a visible light. The freeze of the orientation was investigated through second harmonic generation and infrared spectroscopy measurements. A mean relaxation time of over 4200 h was obtained with co-polymerizable chromophores. With the purely optical method we developed, one can durably photo-pattern the quadratic optical properties of photopolymers for applications in integrated optics.