Special Issue on Nonlinear-Optic Waveguide Materials and Devices. Fabrication Techniques for Electro-Optic Polymer Waveguides.

Abstract

Electro-optic (EO) polymer waveguides are useful for optical circuit systems like inter-chip optical interconnections. They have many advantages such as potentiality of improving electro-optic coefficients, low dielectric constants, and capabilities of fabrication on various substrates and of construction of multi-layered structures. This paper describes vertical-type polymer optical switches we developed, which realize highly-integrated and multi-layered optical circuits. Two approaches we are trying for improving EO polymer materials are shown. One is to develop conventional poled polymers by screening nonlinear optical molecules using molecular orbital calculations. The other is to developing high-performance EO polymers in-cluding main-chain and conjugated polymers using vapor-phase film growth techniques which enable to control molecular order and alignment in polymers.