Organic Optical Materials: An Overview of Scientific Issues and Applications

Although historically, organic materials have not been thought of as optical materials, organics are experiencing increased use as both passive and active optical components. Applications range from passive elements such as gratings, fibers, interconnects, lens, and prisms to active components such as light emitting diodes, electro-optic modulators, solid-state lasers, frequency doublers, optical memories, and sensor protection elements. The utilization of organic materials has typically involved competition with established technology based on inorganic materials. For example, polymeric optical fibers must compete with established silica fiber technology, polymeric electro-optic modulators must compete with established lithium niobate technology, organic light emitting diodes with a host of inorganic light emitting materials, etc. Unless organics offer special advantages, they have little chance of market penetration. A frequently quoted putative general advantage of organics, and particularly polymeric materials, is their processibility and low cost. In areas such as discrete passive components, this advantage clearly comes into play and has resulted with wide commercial use. Indeed, inorganic materials such as sol-gel glasses have major difficulty in competing with polymeric materials in the manufacture of passive discrete optical components. For applications, such as electro-optic modulators and light emitting diodes, the success of organics depends on a number of properties other than materials cost or processibility although even here processibility can be an important consideration for issues such as integration with semiconductor VLSI electronics.