Optical birefringent properties

Biaxial Orientation. Many polymer films require orientation to achieve commercially acceptable performance (10). Orientation may be uniaxial (generally in the machine direction [MD]) or biaxial where the web is stretched or oriented in the two perpendicular planar axes. The biaxial orientation may be balanced or unbalanced depending on use, but most preferably is balanced. Further, this balance of properties may relate particularly to tensile properties, tear properties, optical birefringence, thermal shrinkage, or a combination of properties. A balanced film should be anisotropic, although this is difficult to achieve across the web of a flat oriented film. 

This chapter describes the synthesis of partially fluorinated polyimides for optical teleconununications applications," " 2 their optical transparency (optical loss), refractive index, and birefringence properties" in addition to their fundamental properties. It also describes their device application as optical interference filters," " optical waveplates," and optical waveguides." -" ... 

The response of most materials to mechanical, electrical, optical and other force fields is time-dependent. The study of the responses to these force fields allows one to determine, respectively, the rheological, dielectrical and birefringence properties of materials. According to the second law of thermodynamics, part of the input energy involved in the perturbation must invariably be dissipated, and part of it is stored. It should be pointed out... 

It will be shown that the level of uniaxial orientation and the variation of local mechanical properties generated by controlling the injection temperature can be conveniently characterized by microhardness measurement in combination with the measurement of optical birefringence An and DSC. In Section 2.7 we saw that microhardness is a very useful mechanical property, which can provide direct information about the anisotropy developed within highly oriented polymers. 

The nonlinear optical properties of rotaxanes and catenanes were studied mainly by three techniques the optical second and third harmonic generation and the electro-optic Kerr effect. As already mentioned, the harmonic generation techniques give the fast, electronic in origin, molecular and bulk hyperpolarizabili-ties, whereas the electro-optic methods are sensitive to all effects which induce optical birefringence, such as e.g. the rotation of molecules. Therefore the last technique is very useful to study the rotational mobility of molecules and/or their parts. 

Electro-optic effects refer to the changes in the refractive index of a material induced by the application of an external electric field, which modulates their optical properties [61, 62], Application of an applied external field induces in an optically isotropic material, like liquids, isotropic thin films, an optical birefringence. The size of this effect is represented by a coefficient B, called Kerr constant. The electric field induced refractive index difference is given by... 

Noncrystalline chain segments in fibers may also show orientation in the direction of fiber axis. The extent of this amorphous orientation can be estimated from the total orientation in combination with the crystallite orientation as obtained from x-ray analysis. Although spectroscopic, sonic, and NMR methods have been described for the determination of the general orientation, the most facile method is based on optical anisotropy [304]. This fiber property is characterized by the optical birefringence factor An, defined by the following equation ... 

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