NLM, in partnership with the University of Washington and KU Leuven, publish on a breakthrough chromophore 

Seattle, WA, March 2, 2021 – Starting out strong for 2021, Nonlinear Materials Corporation (NLM) announces an exciting breakthrough for the highest molecular-level response of any organic electro-optic (OEO) material on record. This new OEO chromophore’s (known as BTP7) design, synthesis, and performance details take the cover story in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C. The article “Bis(4-dialkylaminophenyl)heteroarylamino donor chromophores exhibiting exceptional hyperpolarizabilities” was published on March 5, 2021. 

When used at a 10% concentration within an inert polymer such as PMMA (plexiglass), BTP7 matches the electro-optical activity performance of classic OEO material JRD1, delivering 12x the performance of JRD1 for a given mass of material. However, BTP7’s performance does not increase with added concentration. 

While JRD1 and HLD remain the best commercial options for most optical applications, BTP7 may stand out for specialty blending needs where extraordinary performance at low concentration is required, i.e., to allow matching refractive indices with other components in a customer’s design. Furthermore, these learnings currently lead the NLM/UW team in iterations on this record performance in future versioning and new chromophores in development. 

Developed using theory-guided design methodology pioneered by the Robinson and Dalton groups at UW, BTP7 was predicted to have outstanding hyperpolarizability. It delivers with over 3x the static hyperpolarizability of JRD1, based on measurements by researchers at KU Leuven. UW researchers, now staff at NLM, including Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Lewis Johnson, Director of Materials Development Dr. Delwin L. Elder, and Senior Advisor Prof. Bruce H. Robinson, contributed to the design and development, working with UW postdoctoral associate Dr. Huajun Xu. 

About Nonlinear Materials Corporation  

Nonlinear Materials Corporation is a pioneering materials platform company working on solutions for optical computing, quantum computing, and networking, based in Seattle, WA. Follow us on Twitter @nonlinearmater1.  

Media Contact: 
Erica McGillivray 
Communication Director 
[email protected]