Nonuniform photobleaching of dyed polymers for optical waveguides

Abstract

An experimental technique for calibrating the photobleaching process in a nonlinear optical material is presented. The technique depends on the existence of a sharp interface between the bleached and unbleached layers of the material which travels across the film but otherwise has a constant shape. The sharp interface of constant shape is a feature of a general model and is consistent with our experimental results. By determining the dependence of the velocity on the bleaching intensity, the order of the photobleaching kinetics is determined.