Nanocomposite with Very Large Electro-optic Effect and Widely Tunable Refractive Index
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0949-C02-04
Nanocomposite with Very Large Electro-Optic Effect and Widely Tunable Refractive Index Qin Chen, Minren Lin, Jonathan E. Lee, Qiming Zhang, and Shizhuo Yin Department of Electrical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802
ABSTRACT Very large electro-optic effect has been observed in relaxor ferroelectric poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene-chlorofluoroethylene) ( P(VDF-TrFE-CFE) ) terpolymer. By adding small amount of zinc sulfide (ZnS) nanoparticles, the refractive index of the nanocomposites can be tuned between about 1.4 and 1.5 while retaining large electro-optic effect and high transparency. Tunable long-period fiber gratings have been fabricated with the nanocomposite as the second cladding, and over 50nm of resonant wavelength shift has been achieved under a change of electric field of 30V/µm, which is much larger than other reported E-O tuning ranges. This corresponds to a pure refractive index change of the nanocomposite of ∆n/n ~ 0.4%. INTRODUCTION Tunable photonic devices are widely used in many application areas such as optical communication systems, sensors, spectrometers, and etc. Among all the tuning methods, electrooptic (E-O) tuning is perhaps the most desirable one because it has high speed, low power consumption, and usually can be realized by simple structures. E-O tuning is achieved by changing the refractive index of E-O material using external electric field. Inorganic E-O crystals such as lithium niobate have been extensively used in fiber communication systems. However, these materials exhibit relatively low refractive index change (
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