Resonant Optical Nonlinearity of Conjugated Polymers

Abstract

When the energy of a pump wave is in resonance with the exciton creation energy, the electric susceptibility of a conjugated polymer in response to the probe wave is altered by the exciton gas. In this paper, we calculate the dependence of this change on the the exciton populations by the equation of motion (EOM) method. The magnitude of optical nonlinearity is also influenced by ambient temperature, by the extent of exciton wave functions, and by the strength of electron-electron interaction. All of these factors can be easily incorporated in the EOM approach systematically. Using the material parameters for polydiacetylene (PDA), the optical Kerr coefficient $n_2$ obtained is about $10^{-8} cm^2/W$, which is close to experimental value, and is four orders of magnitude larger than the value in nonresonant pump experiments.