Optical article containing a linear polymer exhibiting a high level of second order polymerization susceptibility

Abstract

An optical article is disclosed containing, for the transmission of electromagnetic radiation, a medium exhibiting a second order polarization susceptibility greater than 10.sup.-9 electrostatic units comprised of a linear polymer containing as pendant groups polar aligned noncentrosymmetric molecular dipoles having an electron donor moiety linked through a conjugated .pi. bonding system to an electron acceptor moiety to permit oscillation of the molecular dipole between a ground state exhibiting a first dipole moment and an excited state exhibiting a differing dipole moment. The linear polymer contains repeating units derived from vinyl addition polymerization, at least 5 percent of the repeating units incorporate the molecular dipoles as pendant groups, and the molecular dipoles include a sulfonyl electron acceptor moiety.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.