title: Bisdioxaborine polymethines with large third-order nonlinearities for all-optical signal processing.
abstract: Organic materials with large third-order nonlinearities in the near-infrared spectral regime are critical in the development of photonic devices to be utilized in all-optical signal processing. We have developed polymethine materials, specifically bisdioxaborine-terminated polymethine dyes, which possess large ultrafast third-order nonlinearities and low nonlinear loss all in the near-infrared spectral regime. An extended bisdioxaborine polymethine anion exhibited the largest value of gamma (third-order microscopic nonlinearity) at 1.3 mum (|gamma| = 5.7 x 10-32 esu) and showed no characteristics of symmetry breaking, unlike other polymethines of similar lengths. A neat film of this molecule maintained relatively low linear loss in the near-infrared and showed a large third-order macroscopic nonlinearity at 1.3 mum (|chi(3)| = 3.6 x 10-10 esu), with a temporal response of less than 8 ps. Furthermore, the real part of chi(3) was nearly an order-of-magnitude larger than the imaginary component. Consequently, this material exhibited good figures of merit for all-optical signal processing throughout the entire telecommunications band.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0400, USA.
authors.forename: Joel M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Hales
authors.forename: Shijun
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Barlow
authors.forename: Seth R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Marder
authors.forename: Joseph W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Perry