有機単結晶成長と非線形光学素子(<特集>機能素子・部品と単結晶育成)

抄録

Growth of organic second-order nonlinear optical crystals is critically reviwed in the light to the efforts for realization of high-performance nonlinear optical devices. Problems in such efforts are on fabrication of crystal waveguides such as planar waveguide and channel waveguide, which currently are formed by in-molding crystal growth method. The method leads to the crystal growth with involuntary orintation, so that optical nonlinearity of the crystal is often not usable in an efficient manner. Therefore, it is pointed out that; (1) a way to control orientation of crystal growth, or, (2) a processing technology applicable to crystals obainable, should somehow be developed. Photolithographic process specially developed by the present author and his group members is introduced as the only existing way for the fabricarion of waveguides with desired orientation of the optical nonlinearity of the crystal.