Evaluation of Thermal Stability of Organic Electro-Optic Device by Using Thermally Stimulated Current

Thermally stimulated current (TSC) measurement was employed to study the thermal stability of electro-optic (EO) polymers, i.e., guest/host polymer DR1/PMMA and side-chain polymer PMMA-co-DR1. Here the isothermal relaxation test showed that the relaxation time τ (85 °C) of side-chain polymer PMMA-co-DR1 is longer than that of guest/host polymer DR1/PMMA. TSC peaks appeared symmetrically in proportion to the poling electric field Ep, indicating that DR1 molecules make a dominant contribution to dipolar depolarization. Thermal sampling (TS) method showed that the activation energy of the DR1/PMMA is around 1 eV, while that of the PMMA-co-DR1 is distributed >1 eV. Results suggested that side-chain polymer is preferable to the guest/host polymer in the thermal stability. TSC measurement is helpful as a conventional method for studying the life time of EO polymers in terms of dipolar motion.