Replicated polymer optical waveguides and the application

Abstract

Recently, optical communication networks, such as FTTH (Fiber-To-The-Home), are spreading rapidly to the end-user. And the expectation of replacing electrical signal lines in the body of mobile devices by optical lines is growing based on the recent increase of communication density and the need of smaller mobile devices, also. But, the business fields are facing directly to the consumers, therefore, the serious cost reduction and higher productivity for large-scale production are expected toward the optical communication devices. In order to achieve these expectations, many efforts are given to develop the replicated polymer optical waveguide, SPICA (Stacked Polymer optical IC/Advanced). SPICA is based our unique replication technology which realizes both low cost and large-scale production. And we already realized the single mode polymer optical waveguide by adopting this original technology. And, we evolved this technology to fabricate the V-groove integrated optical waveguide and the film optical waveguide. The V-groove integrated optical waveguide realizes cost reduction at the optical fiber alignment and assembling processes by introducing the optical fiber self-alignment for further cost reduction as a optical link module. The film optical waveguide which is as flexible as electrical cables and is durable of many bending cycle test are realized. In this paper, the technology of SPICA and the applications are discussed.