Abstract
Nanocomposite materials for application in photonics were developed by sol-gel processing and reverse micellar microemulsion techniques. The capability of incorporating many materials with different functional properties in sol-gel processed glass matrices has been explored in making these materials. The large pore volume fraction and the enormous surface area of the sol-gel glasses enables one to introduce many materials in a phase separated fashion, where the phase separation is in the nanometer range. It is possible to introduce an active material on to the pore surface by solution infiltration and subsequent removal of the solvent, then filling the pores with a monomer containing another active material, and polymerizing inside the pores. Using this approach the authors have developed composite materials for optical power limiting applications at different wavelengths and a tunable solid state dye lasing medium. Optically transparent polyimide:TiO{sub 2} composite waveguide materials were prepared by the dispersion of nano-sized TiO{sub 2} particles into a polyimide matrix. The particles were produced through reverse micelles using the sol-gel method, and were incorporated into the fluorinated polyimide solution. A polyimide:TiO{sub 2} (4 wt%) composite waveguide was produced from the solution. Since the particle size is so small, no noticeable scattering loss was observed.more » The measured optical propagation loss at 633 nm was 1.4 dB/cm, which is equivalent to that of the pure polyimide. The refractive index was increased from 1.550 to 1.560 by the incorporation of TiO{sub 2}.« less
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