Organic 3rd order NLO materials (opto-optic)

Third order nonlinear optical effects involve the interaction of one or more light beams affecting the amplitude and/or phase of another light beam, or even generating a beam at a different frequency.  Highly nonlinear polymer waveguide devices offer the possibility of major advances in optical signal processing and development of parametric amplifiers. We have developed a simple optical arrangement for phase sensitive detection of degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) to characterize the real and imaginary parts of the third order nonlinear susceptibility χ(3) using an imaged 2-D phase grating.