Benzylic amide [2] catenanes as a novel photonic material

Catenanes are a new class of potentially interesting materials for application in photonics. Good optical quality thin films of a benzylic amide [2]catenanes were obtained by vacuum evaporation. They exhibit a large transparency range with cut off at around 300 nm and a large refractive index. The propagation losses depend on the wavelength and are of 2.8 dB/cm, 4.5 dB/cm and 30 dB/cm at 1314 nm, 1550 nm and 633 nm, respectively. At 633 nm the propagation losses are clearly due to the Raleigh scattering. The cubic susceptibility measured by the optical third harmonic generation is of (3.4 ± 0.4)×10^-13 esu. The as deposited thin films are anisotropic and exhibit second harmonic generation as well as the linear electro-optic effect. However the linear electro-optic coefficient is about two orders of magnitude larger than that expected from SHG measurements, indicating clearly the ring mobility under the applied external electric field.