Newsletter

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Organic NLO Material

• NSF Site Visit

• Photonic Materials Course

• GEM Annual Meeting:
Call for Participants

• Online Course Development

• Travel Report:
Shijun Zheng

• CMDITR Resume Book

• Graduate-Postdoctoral Council

• Summer REU Update

• Goodbye: Wei Xia

• New LightWorks Editor

• Annual Report Now Available

Organic NLO Material Milestone Reached

Jingdong Luo, Graduate Student, Jen Research Group
Phil Sullivan, Graduate Student, Dalton Research Group

The Jen and Dalton research groups at the University of Washington have employed innovative nanoscale architectural control to reach a new milestone in the area of organic second order nonlinear optical materials. A series of chromophore-based amorphous molecular glasses or their blends have achieved ultrahigh electro-optic (EO) coefficients (r33) above 300 pm/V at the wavelength of 1310 nm. This type of molecular EO composite material displays excellent processibility, high optical transparency, and dielectric properties similar to those of amorphous polymers.

These materials simultaneously maintain several attributes unique to small organic molecules, such as well-defined structure and morphology as well as highly reproducible performance. Containing much higher loading densities of state-of-the-art NLO chromophores, these organic monolithic glasses or their blends can undergo much more efficient electric field poling, assisted by supramolecular self-assembly. The potential for greatly enhanced nanoscale ordering has led to 2~3 times larger EO coefficients than their polymeric counterparts. These recent advances are extremely encouraging and have defined a new paradigm for the supramolecular engineering of the next generation of high-performance EO materials.

2005 NSF Site Visit

The annual NSF Site Visit will take place on June 28 and 29 at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA.

All members, please be on standby for requests for your presence and active participation at this important event.

Photonic Materials Course a Success!

Dr. Simon Jones, CMDITR Education Director

During March and May of 2005 CMDITR PIs (Neal Armstrong, Antao Chen, Larry Dalton, Alex Jen, Sam Jenekhe, Seth Marder, and Joe Perry) worked in collaboration with their colleagues at Norfolk State University (Carl Bonner, Vladimir Gavrilenko, Aswini Pradhan and Sam Sun) on an ambitious project to design and co- instruct an introductory ‘Special Topics’ course in Photonic Materials at NSU. This course was given to 14 current NSU Materials Science Masters and undergraduate students as a 3-credit elective.

CMDITR faculty traveled to NSU to present lectures as part of this course, to give research seminars, and to work with NSU faculty in an ongoing project to assist with the development of their forthcoming Ph.D. program in Advanced Materials Science and Engineering. Problem sets were developed and students were able to ask CMDITR faculty for guidance via videoconference, email, and in-person when the faculty visited the NSU campus. Streaming video recordings of the lecture presentations are available on a dedicated course website accessible through our Members- Only website. The Education Team is delighted to report that preliminary student evaluations of the lectures are very positive. Thank you to everyone involved for your hard work in making this lecture series a success!