Today's technology standard is a molecule called Lithium Niobate (LiNbO3). Lithium Niobate is a crystalline-based material, but it is difficult to grow and process.
Crystalline-based nonlinear optic materials must be grown under strict clean-room conditions and the resulting matrix must be extremely pure in order to modulate light effectively. This raises the production costs, limiting usage of the material. LiNbO3 crystals must also be cut and shaped to specific device configurations. Polymer-based molecules made with Perkinamine™ chromophores are simply manufactured in place, making them cheaper and more versatile.
In conclusion, organic electro-optical and all-optical polymers can be the crossroad between electronics and photonics creating powerful functionality that could not be possible with copper alone. Polymer technology, both from the standpoint of cost and speed can make possible new applications that have previously been largely ineffectual, like voice recognition, object recognition and totally secure encryption. Lightwave Logic is in the vanguard of these applications.
