| Photonics is emerging as a multidisciplinary field which has drawn the attention of engineers and scientists around the world. Photonics is analogous to electronics in that light, instead of electrons, is used to store, transmit, acquire, and process information. The advantage of light instead of electrons is an increase of bandwidth and speed. One class of materials that is promising consists of organic and polymeric systems since they possess large optical nonlinearities, ease of processibility, low cost, and relatively low dielectric constants in contrast to inorganic crystal systems. One of the most heavily studied organic systems are those that contain {dollar}pi{dollar} electron conjugated systems.; However, there are several disadvantages to organic systems, namely a lack of photostability and optical quality when compared to the inorganic systems. Inorganic glasses are attractive since they exhibit high optical quality and photostability; unfortunately, the optical response of inorganic glasses are too low to be useful.; This dissertation addresses these issues by incorporating organic chromophores into sol-gel processed silica glass. By expanding on previous sol-gel optics work, the concept and results on multiphasic nanostructured composites, a new class of optical materials, is investigated. This differs from previous works in that it takes advantage of the different phases of sol-gel glass:polymer composites by phase separating optically functional materials into different phases. This allows for control of the excitation dynamics such as quenching of emission. The advantage of this approach is that it allows for the fabrication of broadband devices such as tunable lasers and optical limiters.; Another aspect explored in this dissertation deals with organically doped sol-gel derived fibers for lasing. This work represents the first known report of lasing from a silica fiber doped with an organic chromophore. In addition, the structure-property relationship is examined for a new lasing dye that exhibits strong two-photon absorption and a relatively high lasing efficiency even with a low fluorescence quantum yield. Finally, two-photon upconversion lasing is discussed in a new lasing dye that exhibits one of the shortest wavelength reported to date for a two-photon upconversion dye laser.; Future research directions in topics covered by this dissertation are also provided. |
