STABILITY IMPROVEMENT OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE PHOTOREFRACTIVE POLYMERS CONTAINING EUTECTIC MIXTURES OF ELECTROOPTIC CHROMOPHORES

Communication: Amorphous organic photorefractive materials, which are useful for reversible holographic applications such as real-time optic al processing and holographic data storage, have excellent performance but limited shelf life, often owing to the crystallization of one of the components. A technique is presented for improving the long-term s tability of composites based on poly(N-vinylcarbazole) that uses mixtu res of two isomeric electrooptically active chromophores. The shelf-li fe is shown to be significantly increased and the photorefractive devi ce performance as good as that of the best materials known previously.