Design and fabrication of all-polymeric photonic waveguides in optical integrated circuits

Abstract

In this work, the design and fabrication of the polymeric passive all optical waveguides, directional coupler and micro-ring resonator as tunable all pass flirting devices based on very interesting, simple, and inexpensive laser beam direct write lithography (LBDW) technique are reported. The LBDW approach is very robust and promising method for fabrication of the complex polymer optical devices. A continuous wave (CW) laser operating at 442nm with a writing speed of 3.5mm/s and a typical optical output power 120mW is used in the laser beam direct writing system. These all passive optical devices have been fabricated based on optical ORMOCORE and ORMOCLAD negative photoresist which are inorganic-organic hybrid polymer, because of their very low losses at telecom wavelengths (1550nm and 1300nm), well controlled refractive indices, and ease of processing, good thermal stabilities, and good adhesion on a wide range of substrates. Optical characterization of these optical devices and the resulting optical waveguide and ring resonators structures are shown to ensure suitability for implementation in optical integrated circuits applications.