ORGANIC GLASSES - A NEW CLASS OF PHOTOREFRACTIVE MATERIALS

The performance of amorphous organic photorefractive (PR) materials in applications such as optical data storage is generally limited by the concentration of active molecules (chromophores) that can be incorpor ated into the host without forming a crystalline material with poor op tical quality. In polymeric PR systems described previously, performan ce has been limited by the necessity of devoting a large fraction of t he material to inert polymer and plasticizing components in order to e nsure compositional stability. A new class of organic PR materials com posed of multifunctional glass-forming organic chromophores is describ ed that have long-term stability and greatly improved PR properties.