ULTRAFAST HOLOGRAPHY USING CHARGE-TRANSFER POLYMERS

Charge-transfer polymers are a new class of nonlinear optical material s which can be used for generating femtosecond holographic gratings. U sing semiconducting polymers sensitized with varying concentrations of C-60, holographic gratings were recorded by individual ultrafast lase r pulses; the diffraction efficiency and time decay of the gratings we re measured using non-degenerate four-wave mixing. Using a figure of m erit for dynamic data processing, the temporal diffraction efficiency, this new class of materials exhibits between two and 12 orders of mag nitude higher response than any other class of material. The high quan tum efficiency and metastability of the charge transfer enables tuning of the decay dynamics by controlling the concentration of accepters i n the blend. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.