ORGANIC-INORGANIC HYBRID GELS - PREPARATI ON AND APPLICATION IN OPTICS

Organic-inorganic hybrid solids have been prepared using sol-gel proce ss. The sol-gel technique offers a low temperature attractive approach for introducing organic molecules into amorphous materials. Moreover variety of shapes, including thin films and monoliths can be obtained. The merits of these solids are their improved optical quality and mec hanical strength required for optical applications. They exhibit optic al transmission in visible range and they can be easily polished. In t his paper, we report the incorporation of several organic molecules (p hotochromic compounds, porphyrin derivatives and nonlinear optical chr omophores) in sol-gel matrices. We show that the diversity of the alko xide type precursors allows to modify the properties of the doped xero gels by changing the nature and the intensity of chemical and steric i nteractions between the optically active guest system and the solid ho st matrix.