Properties of the Optical Planar Polymer Waveguides Deposited on Printed Circuit Boards

This paper reports on a technology for realization of an optical planar waveguide layer on duroid substrate and on FR4 fiber reinforced board material printed circuit boards. Waveguide core material was EpoCore polymer and for claddings we used EpoClad polymer. Design of the presented planar waveguides was realized on the bases of modified dispersion equation and was schemed for 633 nm, 964 nm, 1310 nm and 1550 nm wavelength. Waveguiding properties were measured by dark mode spectroscopy while propagation optical loss measurement was done by the fiber probe technique at wavelegnth 633 nm (He-Ne laser). The samples had optical losses lower than 0.5 dB/cm. The best sample has optical losses around 0.25 dB/cm.