Disubstituted diacetylene single crystal polymers

In addition to studies of diacetylene single crystals, current research, activities are focused on studies of the second X and third x order nonlinear optical responses of disubstituted diacetylene polymer films as active optical guided wave structures. Diacetylene polymers possess X values comparable to germanium(j 7). In the first stage, three major questions are being addressed ... 

Besides single crystals, disubstituted diacetylene polymer thin films can be obtained for waveguide applications by evaporation, solidification, or deposition of the diacetylene monomers by the Langmuir-Blodgett approach, which allows film thicknesses to be controlled at the molecular level. These diacetylene films can be patterned using selective polymerization techniques such as developed for... 

The approach to a similar level of understanding for polymers has been hindered by the structural complexity of the majority of polymeric materials, A notable exception to this is a subset of the polymers based on disubstituted diacetylenes, which are available in the form of macroscopic single crystals. The fact that these polymers have conjugated backbones adds considerably to their value as model materials, particularly in view of the interest in other less perfect conjugated polymers, such as polyacetylene, which can be doped to obtain high electrical conductivity,... 

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