CHANNEL WAVE-GUIDES IN ELECTROOPTIC POLYMERS USING A PHOTOPOLYMER CLADDING TECHNIQUE

Reported here is a new fabrication technique for forming channel waveguides in organic electro-optic (EO) polymer materials. The process uses projection printing to directly expose inverted ridge channel patterns in a UV curing optical epoxy cladding layer. This technique is noncontact, requires no post processing, minimizes wall roughness, and can be used with any spin coatable EO polymer. Single-mode channel waveguides have been demonstrated and characterized as well as phase modulator devices.