Measurement of Pockels Effect in Piezoelectric Chiral Polymer Film

The possibility has been indicated that a piezoelectric polymer with helical chirality (chiral polymer) such as poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA) shows a large linear electrooptical constant (Pockels effect). However, the linear electrooptical constant of a PLLA film may be very small because such a film fabricated by the conventional method has a complex high-order structure with intermingled crystalline and amorphous regions. In order to measure the small linear electrooptical constant of a PLLA film, we developed a new measurement system, which is based on the heterodyne interferometry principle. In this system, the accuracy of retardation is 0.08 nm and the measurement time is 0.1 s. In our attempt to realize a PLLA film with a large linear electrooptical constant, we fabricated a PLLA film, which was heated to 120°C under 320 MPa. Finally, using our new measurement system, we obtained a linear electrooptical constant of 0.070 pm/V in the PLLA film, which is very small compared with those of other famous Pockels materials. However, the linear electrooptical constant of the PLLA film is clarified in this study for the first time.