Polymers have a number of attributes that make them highly desirable for use in the design and fabrication of optical
waveguide devices, such as modulators and directional couplers. They have relatively low (1.5-1.7) refractive indices,
low (~4) dielectric constants at gigahertz frequencies, stable at high (150-190oC) temperatures, resistivities that can be
tailored by adding guest molecules and electro-optical responses via the addition of chromophore molecules. These
materials are easily spin-coated on glass, quartz or silicon wafers to form optically conducting films that have low (1-2
dB/cm) optical loss at the near-IR communication wavelengths. In this paper we update resistivity, dielectric, electrooptic
coefficient and waveguide loss characterization methods and improvements that we are using to provide the data
needed to fabricate polymer waveguide devices and report new results for DNA-based polymers.
Optical, electrical, processability, and film casting characteristics of various conductive cladding layers were investigated. The goal was to find conductive polymer cladding materials suitable for fabricating and optimizing waveguide electro-optic modulators. Using cladding material that is more conductive than the core material, the poling fields in the core will be maximized, realizing a maximum electro-optic coefficient, which reduces the operating voltage in waveguide electro-optic modulators. We found, however, that there are tradeoffs between absorption losses, conductivity, refractive index, materials processability and materials compatibility when using off-the-shelf materials.
For accurate design and modeling of nonlinear optic polymer electro-optic (EO) waveguide devices, potential materials need to be thoroughly characterized. Presented here are the properties of several state of the art materials used for nonlinear optical (NLO) polymer devices, such as Cheng Larry Dalton (CLD) based NLO polymers as well as conductive polymers and epoxies. This characterization includes refractive index, propagation loss, conductivity, nonlinearity, and low and high frequency dielectric constant measurements, as well as materials compatibility.
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