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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Prof. Joe Perry, Georgia Tech
Organic Materials for All-Optical Switching: Real or Imaginary?
School Colloquia
Conjugated organic materials high degrees of electron delocalization can exhibit large refractive or absorptive nonlinear optical responses. With the increasing demands for greater communication bandwidths, there has been substantial interest in the use of organic materials with large refractive nonlinearity for ultrafast all-optical signal processing with bandwidths of tens of terahertz. On the other hand, absorptive nonlinearities have been shown to be of considerable use in optical power limiting, 3D microfabrication and 3D imaging and sensing. While prior efforts have emphasized the use of refractive nonlinearities, recent work has been examining the possibility of switch using absorptive nonlinearities but with low net optical loss.
I will present our efforts to develop molecular level understanding of optical nonlinearities of organic materials, emphasizing relationships between molecular structure, electronic delocalization, and the spectral dependence of refractive and absorptive nonlinearities, as well as the effects of symmetry breaking on optical nonlinearities. Challenges associated with the translation of molecules with desirable optical properties to high nonlinearity optical thin films will also be discussed. I will give an overview of applications of organic nonlinear optical materials in optical switching and limiting, and 3D microfabrication and imaging.
For more information contact Prof. Charles Liotta (404-894-8222).
