Low-Loss, Single-Mode, Organic Polymer Waveguides Utilizing Refractive Index Tailoring

Low-loss, single-mode optical waveguides have been fabricated from photopolymerizable acrylic monomers. The material system consists of a low-index cladding resin and a highindex core resin. The two resins are miscible so that precise control over the refractive index can be obtained. This allows the fabrication of single-mode waveguides with specific crosssectional dimensions. One advantage of this is the ability to fabricate waveguides with high coupling efficiencies to other devices such as optical fiber or semiconductor lasers. The materials adhere to a wide variety of substrates and exhibit average waveguide losses of 0.56 dB/cm at 1300 nm for single-mode waveguides. Details of the fabrication procedure, index of refraction tailoring technique, and waveguide loss data are presented.