Thermally stable poled polyimides using heteroaromatic chromophores

The high temperature polyimides were incorporated with heteroaromatic chromophores and the thermodynamic stability of these poled films at 150 degree celsius were investigated. The heteroaromatic chromophores used in the study is N, N′-diethylamino-tricyanovinyl substituted thiophene stilbene which possesses very large second order nonlinearity. It was observed that the chromophores were chemically stable during the high temperature imidization and poling processes. The off-resonant value was measured to be 10.8 pm/V at 1.52 micrometer using a He-Ne laser. The electrooptic activity showed long term stability at 150 degrees celsius over 700 h.