Investigating the refractive index change of donor - pi-linker - acceptor photoresponsive materials

The arrival of new photonic devices will revolutionize the nature of information technologies that employ light to transfer information. The fact that photoresponsive materials can be reversibly modulated between one of two distinct forms attracted growing interest in photonic and optoelectronic applications. Materials that are capable of controlled modulation between discrete isomers are good candidates for the elaboration of devices exhibiting photoswitched properties such as light refraction. Specifically, the refractive index changes in organic photochromic materials has led to proposals for their use in a number of optical waveguide components. While dithienylethenes have been the focus of recent research efforts, their application into these technologies inherently suffers from design limitations. A modified dithienylethene architecture exhibiting strong charge-transfer excitations within a non-centosymmetric scaffold is proposed to overcome traditional boundaries. These nonlinear materials may therefore provide a new class of highly integrated optoelectronic and photonic systems for communication, signal processing and interconnection.