The influence of an electric field on photodegradation and self healing in disperse orange 11 dye-doped PMMA thin films

Abstract

The influence of an applied electric field on reversible photodegradation of disperse orange 11 (DO11) doped into PMMA is measured using digital imaging and conductivity measurements. Correlations between optical imaging, which measures photodegradation and recovery, and photoconductivity enables an association to be made between the damaged fragments and their contribution to current, thus establishing that damaged fragments are charged species, or polarizable. Hence, the decay and recovery process should be controllable with the applications of an electric field. Indeed, we find that the dye polymer system is highly sensitive to an applied electric field, which drastically affects the decay and recovery dynamics. We demonstrate accelerated recovery when one field polarity is applied during burning, and the opposite polarity is applied during recovery. This work suggests that the damage threshold can be increased through electric field conditioning; and, the results are qualitatively consistent with the domain model of Ramini[3, 4]. The observed behavior will provide useful input into better understanding the nature of the domains in the domain model, making it possible to design more robust materials using common polymers and molecular dopants.

10 pages, 14 Figures,pending review in JOSA B

References in corpus (3)

• Mechanisms of reversible photodegradation in disperse orange 11 dye doped in PMMA polymer
• Two-photon fluorescence measurements of reversible photodegradation in a dye-doped polymer
• A Self Healing Model Based on Polymer-Mediated Chromophore Correlations

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Photodegradation and self-healing in a Rhodamine 6G dye and Y${}_2$O${}_3$ nanoparticle-doped polyurethane random laser
• Self-healing organic-dye-based random lasers
• Random Lasing and Reversible Photodegradation in Disperse Orange 11 Dye-Doped PMMA with Dispersed ZrO${}_2$ Nanoparticles
• Spectroscopic studies of the mechanism of reversible photodegradation of 1-substituted aminoanthraquinone-doped polymers
• Generalizing the correlated chromophore domain model of reversible photodegradation to include the effects of an applied electric field
• The effect of pump depletion on reversible photodegradation
• Wavelength dependence of reversible photodegradation of disperse orange 11 dye-doped PMMA thin films
• Mechanisms of the refractive index change in DO11/PMMA due to photodegradation