Fabrication, characterization and analysis of polymeric integrated optical devices

Photobleaching for defining channel waveguides in both side-chain and guest-host dye doped optical polymers have been investigated. Photo-bleaching was then used as a technique to fabricate directional couplers. Taper coupling in directional couplers has also been evaluated. Passive phase bias has been considered in the design of short-coupling-length polymer directional couplers. Simulations of the taper coupling induced phase bias show a good agreement with fabricated devices. {dollar}-{dollar}26 dB crosstalk has been achieved in a fabricated polymer directional coupler. Coupled mode theory, which is widely used in CAD and simulation of directional coupler devices, has been verified to be an accurate technique to predict behavior of polymer active directional couplers.; Scattering from defects in an integrated optical device causes phase randomization and depolarization. Scattered light can be recaptured by the waveguides of the device. This leads to crosstalk in directional coupler switches. A defect-scattering-induced crosstalk model is developed and crosstalk in passive directional couplers and in one-, two-, and three-electrode directional couplers is investigated with the model. The number of independent electrode voltages needed to tune out crosstalk is studied. Simulations show that scattering-induced crosstalk can be tuned out completely in active directional couplers with two independent electrode voltages. When modal differential loss and unequal taper coupling are taken into account, two independent electrode voltages are insufficient to tune out the crosstalk, whereas three independent electrode voltages are sufficient. This agrees with the conclusion from three-electrode directional coupler experiments (1). The model has been compared with random-index-perturbation-induced crosstalk model in crosstalk distributions and wavelength tuning behavior of passive directional couplers.; The problem of doping optical quality polymers with rare-earth elements has been studied for polymer integrated optical amplifier applications. A number of material systems were constructed. The best results in terms of optical quality at a high rare earth concentration were achieved by doping a fluorinated polyimide with fluorinated neodymium chelate. Slab and channel waveguides were fabricated in this material system and photoluminescence studies were carried out.