Coumarin-Containing Polymers for High Density Non-Linear Optical Data Storage.

Denis Gindre,Oksana Krupka,Emilie Champigny,Marc Sallé,Marie Evrard,Konstantinos Iliopoulos

doi:10.3390/molecules21020147

Abstract

Optical data storage was performed with various thin polymer films containing coumarin-based derivatives and by using femtosecond laser pulses as well as two-photon absorption processes. Exploring the photodimerization attribute of coumarin derivatives and using appropriate irradiation wavelengths, recording/erasing processes could be carried out in the same area. Second harmonic generation microscopy was used to read the stored information.

Highlights

A key challenge of the 21st century concerns the management of information
The use of two-photon processes properties to improve data storage was introduced by the Rentzepis group [4,5] and several works have been reported since, including rewritable optical data storage (ODS) based on spironaphthoxazine [6], two-photon optical storage by fluorescence modulation [7,8], as well as 3D ODS using photochromic materials [9]
Another important light-related effect is second-harmonic generation (SHG), which corresponds to a nonlinear optical process of conversion of two photons at fundamental frequency into one photon at doubled frequency

Summary

Introduction

A key challenge of the 21st century concerns the management of information. The exponential increase of the amount of digital information requires continuous improvement of storage capacities.The last few years have seen intensive research focusing on novel materials and/or new experimental techniques suitable for optical data storage (ODS) as a complementary approach to magnetic hard drives and high capacities flash memories. The possibility to stimulate photochromic materials in order to modulate their linear or nonlinear optical properties constitutes an important breakthrough regarding applications For those related to ODS, two-photon processes are often used as they provide high storage capacity, due to the quadratic dependence on the incident light intensity. The use of two-photon processes properties to improve data storage was introduced by the Rentzepis group [4,5] and several works have been reported since, including rewritable ODS based on spironaphthoxazine [6], two-photon optical storage by fluorescence modulation [7,8], as well as 3D ODS using photochromic materials [9] Another important light-related effect is second-harmonic generation (SHG), which corresponds to a nonlinear optical process of conversion of two photons at fundamental frequency into one photon at doubled frequency. This detection parameter, which is inherently nonlinear and harder to measure than

Objectives

Results

Conclusion