Non linear optical properties of novel amphiphilic azo-polymers bearing well defined oligo (ethylene glycol) spacers

Abstract

Non linear optical (NLO) properties of a new series of pnPEGMAN polymers: p2PEGMAN or Poly[(E)-2-(2-(methyl(4-((4-nitrophenyl) diazenyl)phenyl) amino)ethoxy)ethyl methacrylate], p3PEGMAN or Poly[(E)-2-(2-(2-(methyl(4-((4-nitrophenyl)diazenyl)phenyl) amino) ethoxy)ethoxy)ethyl methacrylate], p4PEGMAN or Poly[(E)-2-(4-((4-nitrophenyl)diazenyl)phenyl)-5,8,11-trioxa-2-azatridecan-13-yl me- thacrylate] and p6PEGMAN or Poly[(E)-2-(4-((4-nitrophenyl) diazenyl) phenyl) -5,8,11,14,17-pentaoxa -2- azanonadecan -19-yl methacrylate] were studied by the Z-Scan technique. These azo-polymers exhibited high $\chi ^{(3)}$ NLO-responses with excitation below the resonance absorption region of the polymers and the evaluated n$_{2}$-values are in the order of 10$^{ - 4}$ to 10$^{ - 5}$~esu, with negative sign for all the studied materials.