Polymer-based photonic integrated circuits

A myriad of passive and active guided-wave devices has been successfully demonstrated using the photolime gel polymer. These include high density linear and curved channel waveguide arrays, electro-optic modulator and modulator arrays, highly multiplexed waveguide holograms for wavelength division demultiplexing and optical interconnects, waveguide lens, and rare-earth ion-doped polymer waveguide amplifiers. A single-mode linear channel waveguide array with device packaging density of 1250 channels cm^-1 has been achieved. The first 12-channel wavelength division demultiplexer working at 830, 840, 850, 860, 870, 880, 890, 900, 910, 920, 930 and 940 nm on a GaAs substrate is also described in this paper. A polymer-based electro-optic travelling wave modulator with 40 GHz electrical bandwidth is further delineated. A rare-earth ion-doped polymer waveguide amplifier working at 1.06 μm with 8.5 dB optical gain is also achieved using this polymer matrix. The tunability of the waveguide refractive index of photolime gel polymer allows the formation of a graded index (GRIN) layer. As a result, these active and passive guided wave devices can be realized on any substrate of interest. High quality waveguides (loss<0.1 dB cm^-1) have been made on glass, LiNbO3, fused silica, quartz, PC board, GaAs, Si, Al, Cu, Cr, Au, Kovar, BeO, Al₂O₃ and AIN.