MULTIFUNCTIONAL CHIRAL POLYMERIC MATERIALS CONTAINING SIDE-CHAIN AZOCARBAZOLE CHROMOPHORES

There is a considerable interest in the synthesis and characterization of multicomponent polymers with structural units containing both photoconductive (carbazole) and electrooptic (azoaromatic moieties) functionalities in the side-chain due to their unique optical properties. These materials can be used in advanced technologies such as optical data storage, nonlinear optical materials, holographic memories, chiroptical switches, surface relief gratings, inscription of channel waveguides, etc. On the other hand, an intense interest has currently arisen toward investigations dealing with the amplification of chirality of polymeric materials, in solution as well as in the solid state. To our knowledge, multifunctional polymers bearing three functional groups directly linked to the side chain (i. e. azoaromatic, carbazole and chiral group of one single configuration) have not yet been reported and would be of special interest for several advanced application fields, such as optical storage, waveguides, chiroptical switches, chemical photoreceptors, NLO, surface relief gratings, photoconductive materials, etc. In this context, we have prepared and fully characterized a new optically active photochromic polymethacrylate containing the azocarbazole moiety, poly[(S)-(4-cyanophenyl)-[3-[9-[2-(2-methacryloyloxypropanoyloxy) ethyl]carbazolyl]]diazene] , poly[(S)-MLECA], with the aim to obtain a multifunctional material. The polymer displays both the properties typical of dissymmetric systems (optical activity, chiroptical switching), as well as the features of photochromic (photoinduced birefringence, linear dichroism, NLO and surface relief grating) and electrooptic (photoconductive and photorefractive) materials. The observed properties appear of interest for a potential use of these materials in nanoscale technologies for all-optical manipulation of informations and in optoelectronics.