Polymers are emerging as an important material in the field of integrated optics. In this paper, we propose a simple method to fabricate polymer waveguides by using a novel polymer PSQ-L. The high index polymer PSQ-LH is used as a core material and the low index polymer PSQ-LL is used as a cladding material. The waveguide circuits are replicated by using a UV-based soft lithography process. Unlike in conventional imprint processes, the imprint step for structuring is done first on the cladding layer rather than on the core layer and is followed by a spin-coating step to fill the imprinted features with core layer material. The all-polymer microring resonators are fabricated by this method. The coupling efficiency between the straight waveguides and the ring is adjusted by controlling the gap distance between the straight waveguides and the ring. About 20dB extinction ratio and a high Q factor of 3.4×10⁴ is obtained for critically coupled PSQ-L ring resonator.

Date Published: 22 October 2010
PDF: 4 pages
Proc. SPIE 7658, 5th International Symposium on Advanced Optical Manufacturing and Testing Technologies: Optoelectronic Materials and Devices for Detector, Imager, Display, and Energy Conversion Technology, 76580F (22 October 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.867977

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7658:
5th International Symposium on Advanced Optical Manufacturing and Testing Technologies: Optoelectronic Materials and Devices for Detector, Imager, Display, and Energy Conversion Technology
Yadong Jiang; Bernard Kippelen; Junsheng Yu, Editor(s)