<title>Development of highly active, thermally stable chromophores and polymers for electro-optic applications</title>

We have developed two classes of highly efficient and thermally stable nonlinear optical chromophores using fused-thiophene and bithiophene as conjugating units. Experimental studies indicate that the use of fused-thiophene or bithiophene as a (pi) conjugating bridge provides an excellent tradeoff between nonlinearity and thermal stability. In addition to the chromophore developments, we have employed new synthetic methodologies to obtain thermally stable poled polyimides.