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 mu m 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.