Low-loss single mode light waveguides in polymer

Heinrich Sieber; Hans-Jürgen Boehm; Uwe Hollenbach; Jürgen Mohr; Ute Ostrzinski; Karl Pfeiffer; Marcin Szczurowski; Waclaw Urbanczyk

doi:10.1117/12.922567

10 May 2012 Low-loss single mode light waveguides in polymer

Heinrich Sieber, Hans-Jürgen Boehm, Uwe Hollenbach, Jürgen Mohr, Ute Ostrzinski, Karl Pfeiffer, Marcin Szczurowski, Waclaw Urbanczyk

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 8431, Silicon Photonics and Photonic Integrated Circuits III; 84311R (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.922567
Event: SPIE Photonics Europe, 2012, Brussels, Belgium

Abstract

We report on the development of a UV-lithography manufacturing process for low loss single mode light waveguides in a novel polymer and the characterization of the fabricated components in a broad wavelength range from 808 nm to 1550 nm. The main focus of this work lies in providing a quick and cost efficient production technique for single mode waveguides and low loss integrated optical circuits. To achieve this goal we chose a novel photo-structurable polymer host-guest-system consisting of SU8 and a low refractive dopant monomer. Near and far-field measurements at different wavelengths show that the mode propagating within a well designed integrated waveguide structure and the mode of a standard fiber can exhibit a mode overlap value of approximately 1 and suffer only very low coupling losses. We demonstrate excess loss of 0.14 dB/cm for 808 nm, 0.33 dB/cm for 1310 nm and 2.86 dB/cm for 1550 nm. Typical insertion loss values of straight waveguides with a length of 36 mm are 0.9 dB for 808 nm, 1.5 dB for 1310 nm and 10.4 dB for 1550 nm. Polarization dependent loss was found to be less than 0.2 dB on sets of test structures of 36 mm length. We measured material attenuation in the novel polymer material before cross-linking of approximately 0.04 dB/cm for 808 nm and around 0.20 dB/cm for 1310 nm respectively. The presented production technique is suitable to provide low loss and low cost integrated optical circuits for sensor and communication applications in a broad wavelength range.

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Heinrich Sieber, Hans-Jürgen Boehm, Uwe Hollenbach, Jürgen Mohr, Ute Ostrzinski, Karl Pfeiffer, Marcin Szczurowski, and Waclaw Urbanczyk "Low-loss single mode light waveguides in polymer", Proc. SPIE 8431, Silicon Photonics and Photonic Integrated Circuits III, 84311R (10 May 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.922567

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