Assembly of arbitrary and vertical optical couplers using flexible polymer micro/nanowires

Abstract

Two simple structures, a star topology network and a tree topology network, were assembled for arbitrary and vertical optical coupler applications using flexible polymer micro/nanowires, which were fabricated by a direct drawing technique from polymer solution. Experimental demonstration shows that the loss of the wires is less than 0.11 dB/mm at 650 nm wavelength. The insertion loss of the two simple structures, which were assembled by intersecting two wires, is 0.6–0.86 dB. The insertion losses of the star topology network and the tree topology network, which was assembled by knotting three wires, are 1.14 and 1.31 dB, respectively.