Advances in polymer based photonics technology: microlasers, electrooptic devices, new concepts

The emergence of molecular photonics as a new domain of research at the cross-road of physics, chemistry and device engineering is being triggered by the increasing demands of broadband telecommunication systems which start to challenge the fundamental limits of current inorganic semiconductor based technologies. Increasing to 100 GHz and beyond the bandwidth acceptance of optoelectronic devices, such as modulators and switches, or down-scaling device dimensions into the new frontier of quantum physics have become scientific as well as industrially relevant targets, unlikely to be met by unimaginative extrapolation of current avenues. Facing this formidable challenge, the so-far relatively untapped wealth of molecular structures, and the targeted exploitation of their functional as well as structural flexibility throughout consistent molecular, material and device engineering steps, open-up thoroughly renewed horizons. An important asset is the complementarity and technological compatibility of polymer and inorganic semiconductor structures providing the possibility of smooth and economically viable transitions towards hybrid organic-inorganic technological solutions. Major current and foreseeable impacts appear to be in the realm of nonlinear optics (harmonic generation and carrier frequency shifting, routing, electrooptic modulation and switching, pulse shaping and synchronization, nonlinear refraction) and microlasers which will be exemplified by a selection of recent and ongoing developments in our laboratory at different macroscopic, microscopic and nanoscopic scales.