| Abstract
| - A series of amorphous azobenzene and carbazole-containing polymers was prepared, whichincorporates both electrooptic activity and photoconductivity into a single multifunctional structural unit.The polymers were cast as thin films and were shown to be suitable for photoinducing birefringencereversibly with polarized light, as well as for the inscription of photorefractive diffraction gratings afterelectric field poling. Since the polymer series encompasses a range of spacer lengths (from 3 to 10methylene groups) between the multifunctional side chains and the polymer backbone, these materialsare suitable for study of the influence of chromophore mobility on these optical phenomena. The extentof orientational order which could be photoinduced in the films was found to decrease with increasingspacer length, as did the photoconductivity and the photorefractive two-beam optical coupling gain. Inthin films of polymers with the highest glass transition temperature, a birefringence of 0.065 could bephotoinduced, with a time constant of <0.8 s. A two-beam optical gain of 0.024 μm-1 was alsodemonstrated in films of the polymer with the highest glass transition temperature, although this gainwas exceeded by absorption losses.
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