Synthesis of organic chromophores for use in electro-optic polymers

Abstract

One of the most rapidly advancing technologies in the field of optoelectronics is optical modulation, with recent research focusing on the use of organic chromophore-containing polymers to achieve this modulation. These polymer-based optical modulators achieve modulation speeds far beyond their mechanical or electronic counterparts, and further success in this field could pave the way for future technologies such as LiFi (light-based WiFi) communications and LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging).

In collaboration with the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton, this project has been centred around synthesising organic chromophores and chromophore-containing polymers for use in the department’s optical modulators, with an aim of synthesising several novel chromophores by the end of the project.

Over the course of the project a PMMA-chromophore copolymer was made from the commercially available chromophore Disperse Red 1 and several steps of a multi-step chromophore synthesis were completed. However, due to repeated failures of several of the steps the final stage of the chromophore synthesis was not completed, although the results from tests of these steps under different conditions may prove useful for future attempts of this project.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Ramon Rios: orcid.org/0000-0002-3843-8521

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