This three-year award will support U.S.-France cooperative research in optical materials. The U.S. and French investigators are Nasser Peyghambarian of the University of Arizona's Optical Science Center, Bernard Kippelen of the Institute for Physics and Chemistry of Materials in Strasbourg, France, and Francois Kajzar of the Center for Nuclear Studies in Saclay, France. Their objective is to develop new photo refractive polymers. They also plan to study the use these improved polymers in optical computing functions such as optical correlation. Photo refractive polymers are important materials for dynamic holographic storage and image processing. In contrast to existing inorganic photo refractive crystals, the polymers can be processed easily in variable forms (thin films, rods, fibers) and used in the fabrication of new photonic devices for optical data processing. The U.S. investigator brings to this collaboration expertise in optical sciences, specifically, in dynamic holographic recording and photo refractive polymer fabrication. This is complemented by the abilities of the French investigators in chemistry and materials sciences and their expertise in the synthesis and characterization of organic nonlinear materials. Their combined effort will result in improved, efficient, speedy and sensitive optical materials.
