Hybrid sol-gel glasses for nonlinear optics/artificial films from cellular automata

We have prepared a hybrid organic-inorganic glass composite incorporating an aminosulfone dye via the sol-gel process. The dye was functionalized with alkoxysilane moieties to anchor it covalently into the silicate network. Co-condensation with the organically modified silicon alkoxide methyltrimethoxysilane (MTMS), gave transparent high-quality films that could be deposited up to 10 microns thick in one step. Corona poling was used during thermal curing to align the chromophores in a noncentrosymmetric fashion for second-order nonlinear optical (NLO) effects. The structure-property relationships of the sol-gel derived glasses were investigated by FT-IR, UV-vis, TGA, DSC and solid state 29Si NMR. From a poled and cured sample containing 0.5% (w/w) of the dye, we measure r13 = 2.2 +/- 0.4 pm/V.; We also report on the simulation of artificial thin films using cellular automata. We show for a one parameter automaton that well-defined empirical mapping relationships exist between the rule table and surface physics like roughness. In addition, we report on similar results obtained for a stochastic automaton using neural networks to map between automaton space and surface parameters.